Quite a visible hand? State funding and primary education in 19th-century France and Italy

ThispaperexploresregionalconvergenceinschoolinginFranceandItalyunderdecentralized primary education, that is, in the long 19th century. A new, preliminary harmonizeddatasetonschoolingispresented,includingfiguresonPrimaryGrossEnrolment Ratios, aggregate municipal expenditure per school-age child and state subsidies across French départements and Italian province. The analysis shows that regional convergenceinschoolinghappenedwellbeforetheshifttotheformalcentralizationof school management in the two countries. However, the pace of regional convergence accelerated during this transition, and the extent of state investments and subsidies mattered to regional convergence. Although more research is needed to include demand-related factors of schooling in this framework, the results suggest that institutions and public policy were quite “visible hands”, which played an important role in fostering education across the regions of Southwestern Europe beyond the mere response to market and demand-side features.