IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/edfpol/v9y2014i4p417-445.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Michigan and Ohio K–12 Educational Financing Systems: Equality and Efficiency

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Conlin

    (Department of Economics Michigan State University)

  • Paul N. Thompson

    (Oregon State University)

Abstract

We consider issues of equality and efficiency in two different school funding systems -- a state-level system in Michigan and a foundation system in Ohio. Unlike Ohio, the Michigan system restricts districts from generating property or income tax revenue to fund operating expenditures. In both states, districts fund capital expenditures with local tax revenue. Our results indicate that although average revenue and expenditures per pupil in Michigan and Ohio are almost identical, the distributions of the various revenue sources are quite different. Ohio’s funding system has greater equality in terms of total revenue, largely due to Ohio redistributing state funds to the least wealthy districts while Michigan does not. We find relatively wealthy Michigan districts spend more on capital expenditures, whereas relatively wealthy Ohio districts spend more on labor and materials. This suggests that constraints on raising local revenue to fund operating expenditures in Michigan could create efficiency issues. © 2014 Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Conlin & Paul N. Thompson, 2014. "Michigan and Ohio K–12 Educational Financing Systems: Equality and Efficiency," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 9(4), pages 417-445, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:9:y:2014:i:4:p:417-445
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/EDFP_a_00142
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raquel Fernandez & Richard Rogerson, 2003. "Equity and Resources: An Analysis of Education Finance Systems," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(4), pages 858-897, August.
    2. Joydeep Roy, 2011. "Impact of School Finance Reform on Resource Equalization and Academic Performance: Evidence from Michigan," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 6(2), pages 137-167, April.
    3. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2001. "All School Finance Equalizations are Not Created Equal," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1189-1231.
    4. Joshua C. Hall & Justin M. Ross, 2010. "Tiebout Competition, Yardstick Competition, and Tax Instrument Choice: Evidence from Ohio School Districts," Public Finance Review, , vol. 38(6), pages 710-737, November.
    5. Murray, Sheila E & Evans, William N & Schwab, Robert M, 1998. "Education-Finance Reform and the Distribution of Education Resources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 789-812, September.
    6. Helen F. Ladd & Edward B. Fiske, 2008. "Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 149-150, January.
    7. Loeb, Susanna, 2001. "Estimating the effects of school finance reform: a framework for a federalist system," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 225-247, May.
    8. Spry John Arthur, 2005. "The Effects of Fiscal Competition on Local Property and Income Tax Reliance," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-21, January.
    9. Matthew Springer & Keke Liu & James Guthrie, 2009. "The impact of school finance litigation on resource distribution: a comparison of court-mandated equity and adequacy reforms," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 421-444.
    10. Brunner, Eric & Sonstelie, Jon, 2003. "School finance reform and voluntary fiscal federalism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2157-2185, September.
    11. John Yinger (ed.), 2004. "Helping Children Left Behind: State Aid and the Pursuit of Educational Equity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262240467, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Teresa Garcia-Milà & Therese J. McGuire & Wallace E. Oates, 2018. "Strength in diversity? Fiscal federalism among the fifty US states," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(4), pages 1071-1091, August.
    2. Mary D. Bruce & Natalia Ermasova & Linda Mattox, 2019. "The Fiscal Disparity and Achievement Gap between Extremely Wealthy and Poor School Districts in Illinois," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 541-565, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria Marta Ferreyra, 2009. "An Empirical Framework for Large-Scale Policy Analysis, with an Application to School Finance Reform in Michigan," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 147-180, February.
    2. Eric Brunner & Joshua Hyman & Andrew Ju, 2020. "School Finance Reforms, Teachers' Unions, and the Allocation of School Resources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 473-489, July.
    3. Epple, Dennis & Ferreyra, Maria Marta, 2008. "School finance reform: Assessing general equilibrium effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1326-1351, June.
    4. Joydeep Roy, 2011. "Impact of School Finance Reform on Resource Equalization and Academic Performance: Evidence from Michigan," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 6(2), pages 137-167, April.
    5. Papke, Leslie E., 2005. "The effects of spending on test pass rates: evidence from Michigan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 821-839, June.
    6. C. Kirabo Jackson & Rucker C. Johnson & Claudia Persico, 2016. "The Effects of School Spending on Educational and Economic Outcomes: Evidence from School Finance Reforms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 157-218.
    7. C. Kirabo Jackson & Rucker Johnson & Claudia Persico, 2014. "The Effect of School Finance Reforms on the Distribution of Spending, Academic Achievement, and Adult Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 20118, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Maria Marta Ferreyra, 2008. "An Empirical Framework for Large-Scale Policy Analysis, with an Application to School Finance Reform in Michigan," 2008 Meeting Papers 609, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Coen-Pirani, Daniele, 2015. "Human capital accumulation in a federation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 104-124.
    10. Coen-Pirani, Daniele, 2011. "Immigration and spending on public education: California, 1970–2000," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1386-1396.
    11. Fernández, Raquel, 2001. "Sorting, Education and Inequality," CEPR Discussion Papers 3020, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Eric J. Brunner & Jon Sonstelie, 2006. "California's School Finance Reform: An Experiment in Fiscal Federalism," Working papers 2006-09, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    13. Sims, David P., 2011. "Suing for your supper? Resource allocation, teacher compensation and finance lawsuits," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1034-1044, October.
    14. Raquel Fernandez, 2001. "Sorting, Education and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 8101, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Joydeep Roy, 2004. "Effect of a School Finance Reform on Housing Stock and Residential Segregation: Evidence from Proposal A in Michigan," Public Economics 0412004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Joshua Hyman, 2017. "Does Money Matter in the Long Run? Effects of School Spending on Educational Attainment," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 256-280, November.
    17. Kathryn Wilson & Kristina Lambright & Timothy M. Smeeding, 2006. "School Finance, Equivalent Educational Expenditure, and the Income Distribution: Equal Dollars or Equal Chances for Success?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 396-424, September.
    18. Raquel Fernandez & Richard Rogerson, 2003. "Equity and Resources: An Analysis of Education Finance Systems," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(4), pages 858-897, August.
    19. Tao, Hung-Lin, 2010. "Equal educational spending across districts--A case study of Taiwan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 980-992, December.
    20. Kreisman, Daniel & Steinberg, Matthew P., 2019. "The effect of increased funding on student achievement: Evidence from Texas's small district adjustment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 118-141.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    equality; education; Michigan; Ohio; local tax revenue;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • P46 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training; Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:9:y:2014:i:4:p:417-445. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.