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Schools and Location: Tiebout, Alonso, and Government Policy

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  • Eric A. Hanushek
  • Kuzey Yilmaz

Abstract

An important element in considering school finance policies is that households are not passive. Instead they respond to policies with a combination of modified residential choice and political choice of tax levels. The highly stylized decision models of most existing analyses, however, lead to conerns about the policy evaluations. In our general equilibrium model of residential location and community choice, households base optimizing decisions on commuting costs, school quality, and land rents. With both centralized and decentralized employment, the resulting equilibrium has heterogeneous communities in terms of income and tastes for schools. This model is used to analyze a series of conventional policy experiments, including school district consolidation, district power utilization, and different equalization devices. The important conclusion is that welfare falls for all families with the restrictions in choice that are implied by these approaches.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric A. Hanushek & Kuzey Yilmaz, 2007. "Schools and Location: Tiebout, Alonso, and Government Policy," NBER Working Papers 12960, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12960
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    Cited by:

    1. Weizeng Sun & Siqi Zheng & Yuming Fu, 2016. "Local Public Service Provision and Spatial Inequality in Chinese Cities," ERSA conference papers ersa16p799, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Charles Ka Yui Leung & Joe Cho Yiu Ng, 2018. "Macro Aspects of Housing," GRU Working Paper Series GRU_2018_016, City University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics and Finance, Global Research Unit.
    3. Kenneth K. Chow & Matthew S. Yiu & Charles Ka Yui Leung & Dickson C. Tam, 2008. "Does the DiPasquale-Wheaton Model Explain the House Price Dynamics in China Cities?," Working Papers 212008, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    4. Daisy J. Huang & Charles Ka Yui Leung & Chung-Yi Tse, 2018. "What Accounts for the Differences in Rent-Price Ratio and Turnover Rate? A Search-and-Matching Approach," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 431-475, October.
    5. Charles Ka Yui LEUNG & Wai Yip MA & Jun ZHANG, 2014. "The Market Valuation of Interior Design and Developer Strategies: A Simple Theory and Some Evidence," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 17(1), pages 63-107.
    6. Changkeun Lee & Euijune Kim, 2017. "Mobility of Workers and Population between Old and New Capital Cities Using the Interregional Economic Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-15, October.
    7. Shin-Kun Peng, 2014. "Housing Market and Agglomeration of Rent-Seeking Activities: Implications for Regional Development," ERSA conference papers ersa14p326, European Regional Science Association.
    8. Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Chow, Kenneth & Yiu, Matthew & Tam, Dickson, 2010. "House Market in Chinese Cities: Dynamic Modeling, In-Sampling Fitting and Out-of-Sample Forecasting," MPRA Paper 27367, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • R1 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics
    • R51 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Finance in Urban and Rural Economies

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