Measuring School Segregation

David Frankel and Oscar Volij ()

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Using only ordinal axioms, we characterize several multi-group school segregation indices: the Atkinson Indices for the class of school districts with a given fixed number of ethnic groups and the Mutual Information Index for the class of all districts. Properties of other school segregation indices are also discussed. In an empirical application, we document a weakening of the effect of ethnicity on school assignment from 1987/8 to 2007/8. We also show that segregation between districts within cities currently accounts for 33% of total segregation. Segregation between states, driven mainly by the distinct residential patterns of Hispanics, contributes another 32%.

Keywords: Segregation; indices; schools; education; axiomatic method: measurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 C81 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-08-04
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (101)

Published in Journal of Economic Theory 2011, vol. 146 no. 1, pp. 1-38

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http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/papers/p15115-2010-08-04.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Measuring school segregation (2011)
Working Paper: Measuring school segregation (2011)
Working Paper: Measuring School Segregation (2010)
Working Paper: Measuring school segregation (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isu:genres:35115

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