Education and Military Rivalry

Philippe Aghion (), Xavier Jaravel, Torsten Persson and Dorothée Rouzet
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Philippe Aghion: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Collège de France - Chaire Economie des institutions, de l'innovation et de la croissance - CdF (institution) - Collège de France
Torsten Persson: Stockholm University, CIFAR

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Abstract: What makes countries engage in reforms of mass education? Motivated by historical evidence on the relation between military threats and expansions of primary education, we assemble a panel dataset from the last 150 years in European countries and from the postwar period in a large set of countries. We uncover three stylized facts: (i) investments in education are associated with military threats, (ii) democratic institutions are negatively correlated with education investments, and (iii) education investments respond more strongly to military threats in democracies. These patterns continue to hold when we exploit rivalries in a country's neighborhood as an alternative source of variation. We develop a theoretical model that rationalizes the three empirical findings. The model has an additional prediction about investments in physical infrastructures, which finds support in the data.

Date: 2019-04
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Published in Journal of the European Economic Association, 2019, ⟨10.1093/jeea/jvy022⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Education and Military Rivalry (2019)
Working Paper: Education and military rivalry (2019)
Working Paper: Education and Military Rivalry (2019)
Working Paper: Education and Military Rivalry (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01883574

DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvy022

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