Obstacles to efficient allocations of public education spending : evidence from a representative survey experiment

Economic research suggests that investments in early education are generally more successful than investments at later ages. This paper presents a representative survey experiment on education spending in Germany, which exhibits low relative public spending on early education. Results are consistent with a model of misconceptions: informing randomly selected respondents about benefits of early education spending shifts majority support for public spending increases from later education levels to spending on early and primary education. Effects of information provision persist over a two-week period in a follow-up survey. By contrast, results do not suggest self-interested groups inefficiently allocate public education spending.