Globalization And Educational Inequality During The 18(Th) To 20(Th) Centuries: Latin America In Global Comparison

This paper explores the inequality of numeracy and education by studying school years and numeracy of the rich and poor, as well as of tall and short individuals. To estimate numeracy, the age-heaping method is used for the 18(th) to early 20(th) centuries. Testing the hypothesis that globalization might have increased the inequality of education, we find evidence that 19(th) century globalization actually increased inequality in Latin America, but 20(th) century globalization had positive effects by reducing educational inequality in a broader sample of developing countries. Moreover, we find strong evidence for Kuznets's inverted U hypothesis, that is, rising educational inequality with GDP per capita in the period until 1913 and the opposite after 1945.