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on Education |
| By: | William J. Collins (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University); Robert A. Margo (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University) |
| Abstract: | African-Americans entered the post-Civil War era with extremely low levels of exposure to schooling. Relying primarily on micro-level census data, we describe racial differences in literacy rates, school attendance, years of educational attainment, age-in-grade distributions, spending per pupil, and returns to literacy since emancipation, with emphasis on the pre-1960 period. The overwhelming theme is one of educational convergence, despite overt discrimination for much of the period studied, and subject to several qualifications. We interpret this theme in light of a simple model of educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Brown, education, Plessy |
| JEL: | I2 J7 N3 |
| Date: | 2003–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:van:wpaper:0313&r=edu |
| By: | Marc T. Law; Gary D. Libecap |
| Abstract: | We examine three theories of Progressive Era regulation: public interest, industry capture, and information manipulation by the federal bureaucracy and muckraking press. Based on analysis of qualitative legislative histories and econometric evidence, we argue that the adoption of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act was due to all three factors. Select producer groups sought regulation to tilt the competitive playing field to their advantage. Progressive reform interests desired regulation to reduce uncertainty about food and drug quality. Additionally, rent-seeking by the muckraking press and its bureaucratic allies played a key role in the timing of the legislation. We also find that because the interests behind regulation could not shape the enforcing agency or the legal environment in which enforcement took place, these groups did not ultimately benefit from regulation in the ways originally anticipated. |
| JEL: | I1 N4 L5 |
| Date: | 2004–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10984&r=edu |
| By: | John J. Siegfried (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University and American Economic Association); Malcolm Getz (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University) |
| Abstract: | To ask whether the best-informed consumers of higher education, the faculty, make different choices than other similarly endowed consumers, we compare the pattern of colleges chosen by 5,592 children of college and university faculty with the pattern chosen by the children of non-faculty families of similar socio-economic status. The patterns are remarkably different. The children of faculty are more likely to choose research universities and even more likely to choose selective liberal arts colleges. This evidence is consistent with the view that the level of information makes a difference in the choice of college. |
| Keywords: | Higher education, college choice, admission, faculty, information |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2003–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:van:wpaper:0302&r=edu |
| By: | Susan H. Busch; Mireia Jofre-Bonet; Tracy A. Falba; Jody L. Sindelar |
| Abstract: | Smoking is an expensive habit. Smoking households spend, on average, more than $1000 annually on cigarettes. For households in which some members smoke, smoking expenditures crowd-out other purchases, which may affect other household members, as well as the smoker. We empirically analyze how expenditures on tobacco crowd out consumption of other goods, estimating the patterns of substitution between tobacco products and other expenditures. We use the Consumer Expenditure Survey (1995 to 2001), which we complement with regional price data, and state cigarette prices. We estimate a consumer demand system of expenditures on cigarettes, food, alcohol, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care and controls for socio-economic variables and other sources of observable heterogeneity. Descriptive data indicate that, compared to non-smokers, smokers spend less on housing. Results from the demand system indicate that as the price of cigarettes rises, households increase the quantity of food purchased, and, in some samples, reduce the quantity of apparel and housing purchased. |
| JEL: | I1 |
| Date: | 2004–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10974&r=edu |
| By: | Robert B Archibald (College of William & Mary); David H Feldman (College of William & Mary) |
| Abstract: | Public effort in support of higher education – measured as state funding per thousand dollars of personal income – has declined by thirty percent since the late 1970s. During this time period many states implemented Tax and Expenditure Limits and/or supermajority requirements for tax increases. We use a forty-eight state panel from 1961 to 2001 to evaluate the effect of these tax revolt institutions for state effort on behalf of higher education. These provisions have a statistically significant and economically large impact on the timing and magnitude of this decline in state effort. An understanding of the fiscal environment caused by these provisions is critical for the future of state-supported higher education. |
| Keywords: | State higher education spending, tax revolt, Tax and Expenditure Limits |
| JEL: | I22 H71 |
| Date: | 2004–12–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwphe:0412003&r=edu |