TY - JOUR
T1 - Did the "tax revolt" reduce school performance?
AU - Figlio, David N.
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper is based on my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am indebted to two anonymous referees, to Jay Coggins, Maura Doyle, Steven Durlauf, Arthur Goldberger, Lee Hansen, Robert Haveman, Li-Chen Hsu, James Poterba, Andrew Reschovsky, Barbara Wolfe and especially to Karl Scholz for enlightening comments and criticisms. One referee made particularly insightful suggestions that have substantially improved this paper. Seminar participants at twelve universities provided helpful comments. I am grateful for research support from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. Kerry Gruber and Beth Schlaline provided helpful assistance. I am responsible for remaining errors.
PY - 1997/9
Y1 - 1997/9
N2 - This paper uses detailed school-level data from 49 states to analyze the effects of tax-revolt era property tax limitations on school services. I find that limitations are associated with larger student-teacher ratios and lower cost-of-living adjusted starting teacher salaries, all else equal. These results are robust to modelling the results as endogenous and using a variety of measures for whether the limitation binds at particular schools. However, I find no such evidence that schools subject to limitations have reduced their administrative costs. Furthermore, I find that limitations are associated with lower student performance on mathematics, science, social studies and reading examinations, all else equal.
AB - This paper uses detailed school-level data from 49 states to analyze the effects of tax-revolt era property tax limitations on school services. I find that limitations are associated with larger student-teacher ratios and lower cost-of-living adjusted starting teacher salaries, all else equal. These results are robust to modelling the results as endogenous and using a variety of measures for whether the limitation binds at particular schools. However, I find no such evidence that schools subject to limitations have reduced their administrative costs. Furthermore, I find that limitations are associated with lower student performance on mathematics, science, social studies and reading examinations, all else equal.
KW - National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS)
KW - Property tax
KW - Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)
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U2 - 10.1016/S0047-2727(97)00015-7
DO - 10.1016/S0047-2727(97)00015-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0031232328
SN - 0047-2727
VL - 65
SP - 245
EP - 269
JO - Journal of Public Economics
JF - Journal of Public Economics
IS - 3
ER -