Citizen "Trust" as an Explanation of State Education Funding to Local School Districts

James Alm (), Robert Buschman and David Sjoquist

No 1208, Working Papers from Tulane University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Many previous studies have examined the level of state grants to local K-12 school districts. However, these studies have not considered the role of citizen "trust" in state versus local governments as a factor. We hypothesize that the role of the state in funding education reflects citizen "trust" in the relative capabilities of governments. We measure "trust" directly via public opinion polls that capture citizen attitudes about the appropriate responsibilities of state versus local governments; we also measure "trust" indirectly, by the role of state government as revealed by its relative importance in overall service provision (net of K-12 spending). We find that the state share of K-12 education spending tends to be higher when there is greater citizen trust in state versus local governments.

Keywords: property tax; state and local finance; fiscal federalism; education; public opinion; intergovernmental transfers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H71 H75 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2012-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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http://repec.tulane.edu/RePEc/pdf/tul1208.pdf First Version, 2012 (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: Citizen "Trust" as an Explanation of State Education Funding to Local School Districts
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tul:wpaper:1208

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