Standard models of public education provision predict an implicit transfer of resources from higher income individuals toward lower income individuals. Many studies have documented that public higher education involves a transfer in the reverse direction. We show that this pattern of...

Many states are implementing school-finance reforms which will have complex effects on income distribution, intergenerational income mobility, and welfare. This paper analyzes the static and dynamic effects of such reforms by constructing a dynamic general equilibrium model of public-education...

We examine a panel data set for the US states over the period 1950-1990 and use it to assess the effects of growth in personal income and number of students on expenditure on public primary and secondary education. Our analysis suggests that the share of personal income devoted to education is...

This paper examines the effects of a zoning regulation on local redistribution in a multicommunity model. Each community chooses, by majority vote within the community, a property tax rate. The proceeds from this tax are then redistributed within the community on a per capita basis. Individuals...

This paper develops a multicommunity model and analyzes policies that affect spending on public education and its distribution across communities. The authors find that policies that on net increase the fraction of the (relatively) wealthiest residents in the poorest community are welfare...

The non-existence of credit markets implies that initial income is a determinant of who actually obtains an education. We consider the outcome of a process in which income is taxed to provide subsidies for education. and taxes are chosen by majority voting. We characterize the outcome as a...

Many states have or are considering implementing school finance reforms aimed at lessening inequality in the provision of public education across communities. These reforms will tend to have complicated aggregate effects on income distribution, intergenerational income mobility, and welfare. In...

Over the last few decades many US states have made large changes to their systems of financing K-12 education with the explicit objective of providing more equitable educational opportunities. There has been relatively little accompanying analysis, however, examining how these changes might...