Panel Paper: When Education Expenditure Matters

Saturday, November 10, 2012 : 4:10 PM
Carroll (Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel)

*Names in bold indicate Presenter

Emiliana Vegas, Inter-American Development Bank and Chelsea Coffin, The World Bank


This paper examines whether there are diminishing returns to education expenditures using cross-country data. Education spending is positively related to student achievement among countries that spend relatively little, such that among these countries, an additional US$1000 in per-pupil expenditures is associated with a 0.2 standard deviation increase in mean student achievement.  In contrast, there is no association between student achievement and educational spending among high-spending countries.