The quality of governance and education spending in Africa

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of the quality of governance, namely corruption, political instability and democracy, on the public budget allocation to education by using data for a panel of 28 African countries over the period 1995–2004. The estimation results show that education expenditure is affected by the level of corruption, with highly corrupt countries devoting a smaller share of their budgets to this vote. Political instability impacts negatively on education, but the level of democracy does not seem to have a prominent effect in this regard. However, International Monetary Fund programmes favour expenditure on education as part of its intended capacity-building effort.