Using German census data we estimate the causal effect of education on smoking and overweight/obesity using the abolition of secondary school fees as instrumental variable. The West German federal states enacted this reform at different dates after World War II generating exogenous variation in...

In this research, we develop a model that predicts the occurrence of education finance reform in the states. We improve upon existing studies of education finance reform that depict the process as a single event that may happen in only state supreme courts or state legislatures. We account for...

Since Coleman (1966), many have questioned whether school spending affects student outcomes. The school finance reforms that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused some of the most dramatic changes in the structure of K–12 education spending in US history. To study the...

The academic achievement gap between poor, minority students and their wealthier white peers has been one of the most troubling and persistent policy problems in the United States throughout its history. For the past forty years, education reformers have turned to the courts to increase...

Connecticut’s public K–12 education system relies heavily on local funding, resulting in substantial disparities between affluent districts and low-income districts with a large proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged students who are more costly to educate. Despite recent...