We use data on vote outcomes from a universal voucher initiative to examine whether white households with children in public schools will use vouchers to leave predominantly nonwhite schools, thereby contributing to more racially and ethnically segregated schools. We find that white households...

In this paper we examine the level and distribution of school facilities spending in California. We find that spending levels dropped prior to passage of Proposition 13. While spending on school facilities has increased in the past decade, California's per capita spending is still 20 percent...

Many economists have cited fiscal illusion as an argument against specific types of taxes arguing that less visible taxes may cause voters to systematically underestimate the true burden of taxation. The higher willingness of renters to support an increase in the property tax, often referred to...

Tenure policies for elementary and secondary school teachers is a controversial issue in many states, but there is virtually no empirical evidence on how tenure affects teacher labor markets. This paper begins to fill this research void by using cross-state variation in tenure policies to...

This paper examines how district size affects the bargaining power of teachers’ unions and the allocation of school resources. Our identification strategy exploits the fact that 33 states mandate collective bargaining while 5 states prohibited it. In states that mandate collective bargaining,...

We examine the housing market, residential mobility, and academic performance changes that occur soon after a school fails to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) (for the second time) in the Charlotte, NC school district. Charlotte is a school district with substantial opportunities for...

Opponents of school vouchers often argue that school vouchers will lead to .white flight. from public schools that are disproportionately non-white, creating more racially segregated schools. In this paper, we present new evidence on whether universal vouchers will lead to a systematic departure...

This paper examines who is likely to gain and who is likely to lose under a universal voucher program. Following Epple and Romano (1998, 2003), and Nechyba (2000, 2003a), we focus on the idea that gains and losses under a universal voucher depend on two effects: changes in peer group composition...

This paper examines whether the voter with the median income is decisive in local spending decisions. Previous tests have relied on cross-sectional data while we make use of a pair of California referenda to estimate a first difference specification. The referenda proposed to lower the required...

There is a large literature demonstrating that positive economic conditions increase support for incumbent candidates, but little understanding of how economic conditions affect preferences for parties and for particulars of their platforms. We ask how exogenous shifts to the value of residents....