Big BRICs, Weak Foundations: The Beginning of Public Elementary Education in Brazil, Russia, India, and China

Steven Nafziger, Latika Chaudhary, Aldo Musacchio and Se Yan
Additional contact information
Latika Chaudhary: Scripps College, http://www.scrippscollege.edu/
Se Yan: Peking University, http://english.pku.edu.cn/

No 2011-06, Department of Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics, Williams College

Abstract: Our paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of public primary education in four of the largest developing economies circa 1910: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). These four countries encompassed more than 50 percent of the world's population in 1910, but remarkably few of their citizens attended any school by the early 20th century. We present new, comparable data on school inputs and outputs for BRIC drawn from contemporary surveys and government documents. Recent studies emphasize the importance of political decentralization, and relatively broad political voice for the early spread of public primary education in developed economies. We identify the former and the lack of the latter to be important in the context of BRIC, but we also outline how other factors such as factor endowments, colonialism, serfdom, and, especially, the characteristics of the political and economic elite help explain the low achievement levels of these four countries and the incredible amount of heterogeneity within each of them.

Keywords: Brazil; Russia; India; China; economic history; education; political economy; elites (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I22 I28 N30 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-his, nep-lab and nep-tra
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Related works:
Journal Article: Big BRICs, weak foundations: The beginning of public elementary education in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (2012)
Working Paper: Big BRICs, Weak Foundations: The Beginning of Public Elementary Education in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (2012)
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