« Back to Results
Marriott Marquis, Grand Ballroom 11
Hosted By:
National Economic Association
an open question whether the level of education spending is adequate, too little or too
much? To answer this question, we estimate how much parents value school expenditure
and their willingness to finance it through higher taxes. We accomplish this
by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in school expenditures and local taxes
arising from School Finance Reforms. We find that school expenditures are positively
capitalized into house prices (e = 0.86), i.e. households value more spending on
schools. Taxes, conversely, are negatively capitalized into house prices (e = -0.17).
At the efficient level of education expenditure, a 1% increase in taxes to fund schools
would yield no change in house prices. We find evidence that education is efficiently
funded. According to our estimates, a 1% increase in taxes to fund education increases
house prices by an economically small and statistically insignificant 0.06%. This provides
empirical support for a core prediction of the Tiebout (1956) hypothesis that
decentralized jurisdictions can efficiently provide local public goods like education.
Decomposing this result by geography, we find no gains in rural areas ( small gains in suburban areas (0.02%) and the largest gains in urban areas (0.19%).
While these estimates are all statistically insignificant, the point estimate for urban
districts is an order of magnitude larger than those for rural and suburban areas, suggesting
that if education is under-funded anywhere, that it is under-funded in urban
school districts
Relationships among Health, Education and Inequality
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PDT)
- Chair: Andria Smythe, Howard University
The Relationship between Student Debt and Health
Abstract
Previous research suggests that financial strain can be both a cause and a consequence of poor health. In recent years, there is evidence of a large and looming student debt crisis in the United States. This study explores the relationship between health status and financial strain from student debt. We utilize recent Survey of Consumer Finances data, two-stage probit, and instrumental variable techniques to explore the causal relationship between health status and financial strain from student debt. Further, we explore this causal relationship for a variety of demographic characteristics including gender, racial, and socio-economic attributes. The results from this study suggest that this bi-directional relationship in the short-run will likely have an adverse effect on young households in the long-run. Our study contributes to the growing literature on the effects of student debt for US households.Do Ethnic Enclaves Protect Foreign-Born Women from Intimate Partner Violence?
Abstract
The effect of immigrants locating in ethnic enclaves on their labor market opportunities is a contested topic. These opportunities can also affect the incidence of domestic violence because the decision to leave an abuser depends on whether victims can support themselves without the abuser’s income. Additionally, the social dynamics of an ethnic enclave may promote or deter violence irrespective of labor market opportunities. We study a sample of nearly 6,000 women in California and find that living in a county with high concentration of the respondent’s ethnicity is negatively associated with experiences of domestic violence.Is Spending on Schools Valuable and Efficient? A National Study of the Capitalization of School Spending and Local Taxes
Abstract
Despite the tremendous amount of money spent on education in the US, it remainsan open question whether the level of education spending is adequate, too little or too
much? To answer this question, we estimate how much parents value school expenditure
and their willingness to finance it through higher taxes. We accomplish this
by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in school expenditures and local taxes
arising from School Finance Reforms. We find that school expenditures are positively
capitalized into house prices (e = 0.86), i.e. households value more spending on
schools. Taxes, conversely, are negatively capitalized into house prices (e = -0.17).
At the efficient level of education expenditure, a 1% increase in taxes to fund schools
would yield no change in house prices. We find evidence that education is efficiently
funded. According to our estimates, a 1% increase in taxes to fund education increases
house prices by an economically small and statistically insignificant 0.06%. This provides
empirical support for a core prediction of the Tiebout (1956) hypothesis that
decentralized jurisdictions can efficiently provide local public goods like education.
Decomposing this result by geography, we find no gains in rural areas ( small gains in suburban areas (0.02%) and the largest gains in urban areas (0.19%).
While these estimates are all statistically insignificant, the point estimate for urban
districts is an order of magnitude larger than those for rural and suburban areas, suggesting
that if education is under-funded anywhere, that it is under-funded in urban
school districts
Higher Education and Racial/Ethnic Differences in Intergenerational Mobility
Abstract
In this study, I investigate the system of higher education as a source of decreasing relative racial mobility and increasing racial inequality in the United States. I argue that the system of higher education has become more stratified over time and its role as a source of income/wealth mobility is becoming increasingly divergent along racial lines. Using a large sample from the NLSY 1979 and 1997 surveys, I study the impact of college participation on racial differences in intergenerational mobilities across the last three decades. The key research question is: are mobility differences between minorities and whites greater among college graduates than among high school graduates and are these differences increasing over time? This is one of a few studies that explicitly model the role of college as a source of rising racial income inequality. As the federal government debates the new Higher Education Act, research such as this is timely to ensure that the effects of colleges in the racial component of widening inequality and declining mobility are factored into policy decisions. Results are forthcoming.Wealth Stratification and Portfolio Choice
Abstract
This paper spotlights the widening racial wealth gap over the past decade as a function of existing wealth disparities and differences in asset allocation. Using the Survey of Consumer Finances we construct a new measure of wealth stratification that shows increasing wealth disparity for Blacks from 2007 to 2016, and a similar but less pronounced trend for Hispanics. We also analyze the influence of race/ethnicity on asset allocation and find evidence that Blacks and Hispanics tend to hold a smaller share of their assets in equity relative to Whites. We conclude not only that race/ethnic wealth stratification in the U.S. has increased over the past decade, but also that this increase can be attributed to the share of wealth invested in publicly traded equity by household race/ethnicity.Discussant(s)
Jevay Grooms
,
Howard University
Marcus Casey
,
Brookings Institution
E.J. Ume
,
Miami University
Omari Swinton
,
Howard University
Jamein Cunningham
,
University of Memphis
JEL Classifications
- I1 - Health
- I2 - Education and Research Institutions