TY  - JOUR
AU  - Go,Sun
AU  - Lindert,Peter H.
TI  - The Curious Dawn of American Public Schools
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13335
PY  - 2007
Y2  - August 2007
DO  - 10.3386/w13335
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13335
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13335.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Sun Go
Department of Economics
University of California, Davis
One Shields Ave.
Davis, CA 95616
E-Mail: sgo@ucdavis.edu

Peter H. Lindert
Department of Economics
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA  95616
Tel: 530/752-1983
Fax: 530/752-5611
E-Mail: phlindert@ucdavis.edu
AB  - Three factors help to explain why school enrollments in the Northern United States were higher than those in the South and in most of Europe by 1850.  One was affordability: the northern states had higher real incomes, cheaper teachers, and greater local tax support.  The second was the greater autonomy of local governments.  The third was the greater diffusion of voting power among the citizenry in much of the North, especially in rural communities.  The distribution of local political voice appears to be a robust predictor of tax support and enrollments, both within and between regions.
ER  -