IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/fcnddp/59286.html

Community, Inequality, and Local Public Goods: Evidence From School Financing in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Yamauchi, Futoshi
  • Mishiyama, Shinichi

Abstract

To examine how local income distribution affects both a community’s ability to pay for schooling and the quality of that schooling, this research merges household and school census data from South Africa. Empirical results are twofold. First, while the median income and the average household income increase school fees, inequality in household income (standard deviation) decreases school fees, which indicates that the lower tail of income distribution pulls down school fees. Second, an increase in school fees significantly improves school quality, decreasing the learner-educator ratio and increasing the number of nonsubsidized educators. The result is consistent with (1) strategic behavior of the low-income group and (2) optimal school fee determination with incomplete interhousehold income transfers. Empirical results and simulations demonstrate the possibility that income and asset inequality may reduce the quality of public goods, decreasing human capital and income growth for the next generation.

Suggested Citation

  • Yamauchi, Futoshi & Mishiyama, Shinichi, 2005. "Community, Inequality, and Local Public Goods: Evidence From School Financing in South Africa," FCND Discussion Papers 59286, CGIAR, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:fcnddp:59286
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.59286
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/59286/files/fcndp201.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.59286?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:ags:fcnddp:59286. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.html .

    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.