TY - JOUR
T1 - Inequality, opting-out and public education funding
AU - Arcalean, C.
AU - Schiopu, I.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Chiara Binelli, Christian Bredemeier, Matthias Doepke, Gerhard Glomm, Volker Meier, Wolfram Richter, Holger Sieg, the editor Marc Fleurbaey and two anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions. Financial support from Banc Sabadell, the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Grant ECO2011-2492) and Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant SGR 2014-1079) is gratefully acknowledged. The usual caveat applies.
Publisher Copyright:
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015.
PY - 2016/4
Y1 - 2016/4
N2 - We investigate the effect of inequality on the political support for public education funding in a model of endogenous fertility and school choice. In contrast to recent literature we show that when household income heterogeneity is consistent with the skewness of empirical income distributions, inequality can drive education spending in opposite directions in poor and rich economies. A mean preserving spread increases tax rates and public school enrollment, but decreases public spending per student in low income economies, while it has opposite effects at high income levels. An increase in the average income level can also have non-monotonic effects.
AB - We investigate the effect of inequality on the political support for public education funding in a model of endogenous fertility and school choice. In contrast to recent literature we show that when household income heterogeneity is consistent with the skewness of empirical income distributions, inequality can drive education spending in opposite directions in poor and rich economies. A mean preserving spread increases tax rates and public school enrollment, but decreases public spending per student in low income economies, while it has opposite effects at high income levels. An increase in the average income level can also have non-monotonic effects.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84979238849&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00355-015-0937-9
DO - 10.1007/s00355-015-0937-9
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84979238849
SN - 0176-1714
VL - 46
SP - 811
EP - 837
JO - Social Choice and Welfare
JF - Social Choice and Welfare
IS - 4
ER -
