The role of industrialisation in education expenditure: municipal budgets in Biscay, 1860-1910

Abstract

This paper presents a unique database that explores how industrialisation affected municipalities' incomes, expenditures and education spending. Using the importance of the mines and steelworks in Biscay in northern Spain between 1860 and 1910 as indicators of industrialisation, the findings show that there was a positive relationship between these dimensions and towns' incomes, which was indirectly transmitted to municipalities' expenditures, showing that municipalities were able to benefit from industrialisation. However, the thriving mining and metallurgy sectors did not support an increase in education spending. The lack of short-term results from spending on education may have led town councils to divert the revenues of industrialisation into more urgent areas, or those that could deliver faster results.