Education spending in an aging America

Are the elderly a threat to educational expenditures?

“…Declining spending at local level would have more of a negative impact on property prices than spending at State-level. Harris et al (2001) use this argument to try and reconcile the different results of Poterba (1998) and Ladd and Murray (2001). Capitalization effects have been argued for and shown also by Brueckner and Joo (1991), Brunner and Baldson (2004) and Hilber and Mayer (2004).…”

“…4 Harris et al (2001) use this argument to explain their empirical results, which identified a negative impact of the number of senior citizens on educational spending at State-level but no negative impact on local (County) educational spending. Declining spending at local level would have more of a negative impact on property prices than spending at State-level.…”

Local response to fiscal incentives in heterogeneous communities

“…Increases in the share of elderly residents within a geographic area are negatively correlated with changes in school spending (Cutler et al, 1993;Poterba, 1996, andHarris et al, 2001), and studies indicate that households without school-aged children prefer significantly lower spending on public schools (see Rubinfeld 1977;Bergstrom et al, 1982;Gramlich and Rubinfeld, 1982;Lankford, 1985). Given these facts, the rise in the elderly population share from roughly 13% today to over 20% in 2050 may have a significant impact on public support for expenditure on elementary and secondary education.…”

“…Finally, I explore the relative impact of tax relief for elderly and non-elderly homeowners 1 A number of studies examine how spending relates to variation in the composition of local residents (e.g., Cutler et al, 1993;Poterba, 1996;Harris et al, 2001;Reback, 2008;and Hilber and Mayer, 2009), or examine the relationship between desired spending and household characteristics using micro-data (e.g., Rubinfeld, 1977;Bergstrom et al, 1982;Gramlich and Rubinfeld, 1982;Lankford, 1985). using the fact that the program provided them with different benefits.…”

The political economy of public investment when population is aging: A panel cointegration analysis

“…In the last decades, empirical studies have demonstrated that population aging in fact influences government spending components including social welfare, health and education (Harris et al, 2001;Krieger and Ruhose, 2013;Poterba, 1997;Sanz and Velázquez, 2007;Shelton, 2008;Tepe and Vanhuysse, 2009). Furthermore, evidence based on survey data reveals age-specific preferences regarding welfare and educational spending (Boeri et al, 2001;Bonoli and Häusermann, 2009;Cattaneo and Wolter, 2009;Sørensen, 2013).…”