Local public education and childless voting : the arising of an "ends with the middle" coalition
Abstract
We show that capitalization of local education into the housing price induces childless voters to support local education. In particular, low income childless households vote for a tax raise when capitalization is strong, whereas high income childless supports a higher tax when capitalization is weak. The median income voter is never pivotal because "ends with the middle" coalitions arise: high income households (with and without a child) makes coalition with middle income class with a child, whereas low income households (with and without a child) make coalition with childless middle income class. We nd that the income of the childless median voter is higher than the median income, whereas median voter with a child has income lower than the median. Thus the equilibrium tax preferred by the median voter (childless or not), is higher than the tax preferred by the childless median income voter and lower than the tax preferred by the median income voter with a child. This result implies that it is not possible to exclude voting equilibria in which theDownload Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise in its series THEMA Working Papers with number 2009-07.Length:
Date of creation: 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ema:worpap:2009-07
Contact details of provider:
Postal: 33, boulevard du port - 95011 Cergy-Pontoise Cedex
Phone: 33 1 34 25 60 63
Fax: 33 1 34 25 62 33
Email:
Web page: http://thema.u-cergy.fr
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: local public education; housings; local tax; capitalization; childless voting;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
- H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
- I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance
- R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-07-28 (All new papers)
- NEP-CDM-2009-07-28 (Collective Decision-Making)
- NEP-POL-2009-07-28 (Positive Political Economics)
- NEP-URE-2009-07-28 (Urban & Real Estate Economics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February.
- Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416.
- Nechyba, Thomas, 2003.
"School finance, spatial income segregation, and the nature of communities,"
Journal of Urban Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 61-88, July.
- Nechyba, Thomas J., 2002. "School Finance, Spatial Income Segregation and the Nature of Communities," Working Papers 02-17, Duke University, Department of Economics.
- Hoxby, Caroline M, 1998. "How Much Does School Spending Depend on Family Income? The Historical Origins of the Current School Finance Dilemma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 309-14, May.
- Eric J. Brunner & Stephen L. Ross, 2009. "Is the Median Voter Decisive? Evidence of 'Ends Against the Middle' From Referenda Voting Patterns," Working papers 2009-02, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised May 2010.
- Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1997.
"Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions,"
NBER Working Papers
6009, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1999. "Public Goods And Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(4), pages 1243-1284, November.
- Baqir, Reza & Easterly, William & Alesina, Alberto, 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions," Scholarly Articles 4551797, Harvard University Department of Economics.
- Alesina, Alberto & Baqir, Reza & Easterly, William, 1999. "Public goods and ethnic divisions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2108, The World Bank.
- Brueckner, Jan K. & Joo, Man-Soo, 1991. "Voting with capitalization," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 453-467, November.
- Bergstrom, Theodore C & Rubinfeld, Daniel L & Shapiro, Perry, 1982. "Micro-Based Estimates of Demand Functions for Local School Expenditures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1183-1205, September.
- Yinger, John, 1982. "Capitalization and the Theory of Local Public Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 917-43, October.
- Sonstelie, Jon C. & Portney, Paul R., 1980. "Gross rents and market values: Testing the implications of Tiebout's hypothesis," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 102-118, January.
- Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1998. "Human Capital and Social Capital: The Rise of Secondary Schooling in America, 1910 to 1940," NBER Working Papers 6439, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Oates, Wallace E, 1969. "The Effects of Property Taxes and Local Public Spending on Property Values: An Empirical Study of Tax Capitalization and the Tiebout Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(6), pages 957-71, Nov./Dec..
- Harris, Amy Rehder & Evans, William N. & Schwab, Robert M., 2001. "Education spending in an aging America," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 449-472, September.
- Ed Baldson & Eric Brunner, 2003.
"Intergenerational Conflict and the Political Economy of School Spending,"
Working papers
2003-24, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
- Brunner, Eric & Balsdon, Ed, 2004. "Intergenerational conflict and the political economy of school spending," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 369-388, September.
- Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1997. "Why the United States Led in Education: Lessons from Secondary School Expansion, 1910 to 1940," NBER Working Papers 6144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Christian A. L. Hilber & Christopher J. Mayer, 2004. "Why Do Households Without Children Support Local Public Schools?," NBER Working Papers 10804, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Yinger, John, 1981. "Capitalization and the Median Voter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 99-103, May.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ema:worpap:2009-07For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Marion Oury).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

