TY  - JOUR
AU  - Corcoran,Sean
AU  - Evans,William N.
TI  - Income Inequality, the Median Voter, and the Support for Public Education
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 16097
PY  - 2010
Y2  - June 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16097
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16097.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Sean Corcoran
New York University
Institute for Education and Social Policy,
Suite 805
665 Broadway
New York, NY 10012
E-Mail: sean.corcoran@nyu.edu

William N. Evans
Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Economics
Department of Economics and Econometrics
447 Flanner Hall
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Tel: 574-631-7039
E-Mail: wevans1@nd.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2010-10-01
AB  - Using a panel of U.S. school districts spanning 1970 – 2000, we examine the relationship between income inequality and fiscal support for public education. In contrast with recent theoretical and empirical work suggesting a negative relationship between inequality and public spending, we find results consistent with a median voter model, in which inequality that reduces the median voter’s tax share induces higher local spending on public education. We estimate that 12 to 22 percent of the increase in local school spending over this period is attributable to rising inequality.
ER  -