Landownership concentration and the expansion of education*

We study the relationship between large landownership concentration and the expansion of mass education in nineteenth-century Prussia. Cross-sectional estimates show a negative association between landownership concentration and enrollment rates. Fixed-effects panel estimates indicate that regions with an initially stronger landownership concentration exhibit increasing enrollment rates. This relationship is not driven by differences in the supply of schooling. We argue that the implementation of agricultural reforms including the stepwise abolition of serfdom is an important driver of the change in enrollment. The results are consistent with the interpretation that emancipation from labor coercion increased the private demand for education.