Property Tax

In this paper, I estimate the effect of education spending on district-level student outcomes in 24 states by leveraging changes in revenue driven by property value variation. I find that a 10 percent increase in spending improves graduation rates by 3 to 5 percentage points and student test scores by 0.07 to 0.09 standard deviations. This suggests that market variation in property values affects student outcomes through existing school finance formulas.

This study, published in the Economics of Education Review, explores how teachers unions affect education production by comparing outcomes between districts allocating new tax revenue amidst collective bargaining negotiations and districts allocating tax revenue well before.