Can education expenditures reduce income inequality?

Using a cross section of countries, this paper empirically examines whether devoting more resources to education can positively affect the distributio n of income (as measured by the Gini coefficient) within a country. From th e findings, public education expenditures appear to be associated with a su bsequent decrease in the level of income inequality. This finding is robust to the inclusion of various control variables and appears to be larger in high income nations. The findings suggest that devoting more resources to e ducation may be one way to reduce the level of income inequality within a c ountry. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.