Big BRICs,weak foundations: The beginning of public elementary education in Brazil,Russia, India,and China |
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| Authors: | Latika Chaudhary Aldo Musacchio Steven Nafziger Se Yan |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Physics, PUC-Rio, Caixa Postal 38071, RJ, Rio de Janeiro 22452–970, Brazil;2. Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Caixa Postal 15051, Porto Alegre RS 90501–970, Brazil;3. Instituto de Física de Mar del Plata, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Deán Funes 3350, 7600 Mar del Plata, Argentina;4. Programa de Mestrado em Economia, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Av. Unisinos, 950, São Leopoldo RS 93022–000, Brazil;5. Instituto Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnologia em Sistemas Complexos, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;1. Brown University, Department of Economics, Robinson Hall, 64 Waterman Street, Providence, RI 02912, USA;2. University of Bologna. Department of Economics, Piazza Scaravilli 2, 40126 Bologna, Italy |
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| 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% 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. |
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