Do federal grants boost school spending? Evidence from Title I
نویسنده
چکیده
One of the federal government’s main elementary and secondary education programs is Title I, which allocates money for compensatory education to school districts based on child poverty. I use sharp changes in per-pupil grant amounts surrounding the release of decennial census data to identify effects of Title I on state and local education revenue, and how much the program ultimately increases spending by recipient school districts. I find that state and local revenue efforts initially are unaffected by Title I changes, but that local governments substantially and significantly crowd out changes in Title I within in a 3-year period. D 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: H7; H4; I2
منابع مشابه
Local Responses to Federal Grants: Evidence from the Introduction of Title I in the South
We analyze the effects of the introduction of Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a large federal grants program designed to increase poor students’ educational services and achievement. We focus on the South, the poorest region of the country. Title I increased school spending by 50 cents on the dollar in the average Southern school district and by more in districts wit...
متن کاملEndogenous Federal Grants and Crowd-out of State Government Spending: Theory and Evidence from the Federal Highway Aid Program
Contrary to simple theoretical predictions, existing evidence suggests that federal grants do not crowd out state government spending. A legislative bargaining model with endogenous grants documents a positive correlation between grant receipts and preferences for public goods; this correlation has likely biased existing work against measuring crowd-out. To correct for such endogeneity, the mod...
متن کاملAre State Governments Roadblocks to Federal Stimulus? Evidence from Highway Grants in the 2009 Recovery Act
We examine how state governments adjusted spending in response to the large temporary increase in federal grants under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). We concentrate our analysis on ARRA highway grants, which were especially likely to crowd out states’ own highway funding given the lack of matching requirements and according to past research on federal highway grants. Th...
متن کاملForthcoming in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics School Inputs, Household Substitution, and Test Scores
Empirical studies of the relationship between school inputs and test scores typically do not account for household responses to changes in school inputs. Evidence from India and Zambia shows that student test scores are higher when schools receive unanticipated grants; but there is no impact of grants that are anticipated. We show that the most likely mechanism for this result is that household...
متن کاملThe Influence of Federal Spending on Presidential Elections
Dovoters reward presidents for increased federal spending in their local constituencies? Previous research on the electoral consequences of federal spending has focused almost exclusively on Congress, mostly with null results. However, in a countyand individual-level study of presidential elections from 1988 to 2008, we present evidence that voters reward incumbent presidents (or their party’s ...
متن کامل