Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
美国在公立学校上的支出足够吗？基于市场效率检验的证据
Does the United States spend enough on public schools? Evidence from a market-based efficiency test
摘要
While existing evidence shows that increased school spending improves student outcomes, it remains unclear whether current spending levels are efficient. Building on the classic public finance insight that local public-goods provision is efficient when a marginal, tax-financed increase leaves local house prices unchanged, we test whether school spending meets this benchmark. To implement this test, we assemble a 26-year national panel linking house prices, current public school expenditures, and property taxes, and exploit court-mandated school finance reforms to develop new instruments for local taxation. Combining these instruments with established instruments for current expenditures, we estimate the causal effect of tax-financed spending increases on house prices. Tax-financed increases in current expenditures raise house prices, implying that households value additional school spending more than it costs. These findings indicate that current U.S. public school spending falls below the efficient benchmark.
中文摘要
尽管现有证据表明增加学校支出能改善学生成绩，但当前支出水平是否有效率仍不明确。基于公共财政学的经典洞见——当边际的、由税收融资的增加使本地房价保持不变时，地方公共品供给即为有效率——我们检验学校支出是否达到这一基准。为实施该检验，我们构建了一个为期26年的全国面板数据，将房价、当前公立学校支出与财产税相联系，并利用法院强制推行的学校财政改革来构建地方税收的新工具变量。将这些工具变量与当前支出的既有工具变量相结合，我们估计了税收融资的支出增加对房价的因果效应。税收融资的当前支出增加会推高房价，这意味着家庭对额外学校支出的估值高于其成本。这些发现表明，当前美国公立学校支出低于有效基准。