Research over the past several years has led to the development of models characterizing equilibrium in a system of local jurisdictions. An important insight from these models is that plausible single-crossing assumptions about preferences generate strong predictions about the equilibrium...

Assessing the effectiveness of education by race and gender is as difficult as it is important. We investigate this question utilizing data for eleven cohorts at West Point, a distinguished military academy and highly ranked liberal arts college. Employing matching using entry scores on three...

The analysis of educational vouchers has evolved from market-based analogies to models that incorporate distinctive features of the educational environment. These distinctive features include peer effects, scope for private school pricing and admissions based on student characteristics, the...

Government may provide a good that can, if legally permitted, be supplemented by private purchases. Policy is determined by majority rule. Under standard assumptions on preferences, a majority voting equilibrium exists. A regime of positive government provision with no restriction on private...

The goal of this paper is to develop predictions regarding market consequences of peer effects in higher education and to offer empirical evidence about the extent to which those predictions are borne out in the data. We develop a model in which colleges seek to maximize the quality of the...

For decades, colleges and universities have struggled to increase participation of minority and disadvantaged students. Urban school districts confront a parallel challenge; minority and disadvantaged students are underrepresented in selective programs that use merit-based admission. In their...

We examine majority choice of tax instruments in single- and multi-jurisdictional economies with heterogeneous households. In our framework majority voting equilibrium exists despite the multidimensional policy choice set. We identify five competing incentives that influence choice of tax...

We formulate and estimate a new equilibrium model of metropolitan housing markets with housing differentiated by quality. Quality is a latent variable that captures all features of a dwelling and its environment. We estimate the model for Chicago and New York, obtaining hedonic housing price...