Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Alexander James
Author-Name-First: Alexander
Author-Name-Last: James
Author-Email:  alex.james@uaa.alaska.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics and Public Policy, University of Alaska Anchorage
Title: Is education really underfunded in resource-rich economies? Evidence from a panel of U.S. states
Abstract: Existing development literature has argued that natural-resource endowments ``curse'' economic prosperity by reducing expenditures on education. According to this theory, public and private agents lack sufficient foresight to make optimal economic decisions and become poor as a result. Using a panel of U.S. state-level data, this paper offers evidence to the contrary. Public spending on education in resource-rich states greatly exceeds that in resource-scarce ones, and private education services are imperfectly crowded out as a result. More generally, this paper highlights the importance of exploiting both spatial and temporal variation in resource wealth when studying resource-rich economies.
Creation-date: 2015-01
File-URL: http://www.econpapers.uaa.alaska.edu/RePEC/ala/wpaper/ALA201501.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Classification-JEL: Q32, Q33, Q38 
Keywords: Natural Resources, Education, Public Policy, Resource Curse
Number: 2015-01
Handle: RePEc:ala:wpaper:2015-01