The Relationship Between Public Spending Per Student and Educational Quality in Brazilian Municipalities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61673/ren.2026.2713Keywords:
Education, Education performance, spendingAbstract
This study aims to examine the relationship between public spending on education per student and educational quality in Brazilian municipalities between 2013 and 2019, as it is essential to identify whether the allocation of public resources is being efficient in improving the quality of education. Methodologically, microdata from the Basic Education Assessment System (Saeb) were used for 5th and 9th-grade students in the subjects of Portuguese and Mathematics, adopting a panel data approach at the municipal level with fixed effects that control for unobservable and time-invariant characteristics. The results showed that all coefficients for educational spending were positive and significant, indicating that increases in spending raise the educational quality in the municipalities. However, it is important to recognize that this relationship is still considerably small.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Jayane Freires Ferreira, Jair Andrade de Araujo, Gerrio dos Santos Barbosa, Francisco José Silva Tabosa
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