Social Democrats and Education Spending: A Refined Perspective on Supply-Side Strategies

MPIfG Working Paper No. 07/02

27 Pages Posted: 1 Feb 2008

See all articles by Marius R. Busemeyer

Marius R. Busemeyer

University of Konstanz - Department of Politics and Management

Date Written: June 2007

Abstract

This paper builds on the arguments developed by Carles Boix (1997, 1998) about partisan differences in supply-side oriented strategies. The original Boix model argues that social democrats in government prefer to increase public investment in human capital formation, while conservatives are opposed to this. The model is presented and subjected to a comprehensive empirical test. It is argued that it is necessary to determine the dynamics of spending in each educational sector separately. In addition, economic internationalization is not treated as a background variable as with Boix (1997, 1998), but fully included in the analysis. Finally, instead of relying on a simple dichotomy of leftist and rightist parties, the impact of government participation on the part of social democrats, Christian democrats and conservatives is analysed. The empirical test supports the Boix model only on a very general level. Social democrats are found for the most part to increase spending on higher education, which is at odds with the predictions of the Boix model and partisan theory in general. The paper concludes with a discussion of the consequence of the findings for the development of partisan theory.

Keywords: Social democrats, education spending

JEL Classification: I22, I28

Suggested Citation

Busemeyer, Marius R., Social Democrats and Education Spending: A Refined Perspective on Supply-Side Strategies (June 2007). MPIfG Working Paper No. 07/02, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1089377 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1089377

Marius R. Busemeyer

University of Konstanz - Department of Politics and Management ( email )

Universitaetstrasse 10
Konstanz, D-78457
Germany

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