RSSE: Therese Nilsson (Lund University) The Effects of Direct Democracy on Education Investments. Evidence from Swedish Municipalities

It is our pleasure to host prof. Therese Nilsson (Lund University), who will present on Thursday November 3, 2022 at 12:45 in room RB437 about her research on the topic „The Effects of Direct Democracy on Education Investments. Evidence from Swedish Municipalitie“.

BIO: Therese is a full professor in economics at Department of Economics, Lund University, and at the Research institute of Industrial Economics (IFN). She also works as an Academic Programme Advisor for the Trade Policy Training Institute in Africa (trapca). Most of her research lies at the intersection of health and education economics, but her research also includes work on cultural and institutional economics. She published in top journals like Review of Economics and Statistics, Energy Economics, or the Journal of European Economic Association.

ABSTRACT:

This paper examines whether the type of democratic institution at the local level matters for collective decisions regarding investments in public education. For our purposes we exploit a unique institutional setting in Swedish municipalities and a reform implemented in the first half of the 20th century where the democratic regime (direct or representative) of municipalities was determined by a population threshold, together with historical data on local education reforms increasing compulsory instructional time for students in primary school. The results show that municipalities with political representation invested more in education compared to municipalities with direct democracy. We also find evidence of persistent influence of political elites, in turn delaying the expansion of mass education.