Why Voters Veto Vouchers: Public Schools and Community-Specific Social Capital |
| |
Authors: | William A Fischel |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of professor of Economics, Dartmouth College, 6106 Rockefeller, Hanover, NH 03755, USA |
| |
Abstract: | This article explains voters‘ attachment to public education the public benefit of local schools accrues to adults, not children.
Having children in local schools increases parents’ “community-specific social capital.” Through local school connections,
parents get to know other adults in their community better, which in turn reduces the transaction costs of citizen provision
of local public goods. Vouchers would disperse students from their communities and thereby reduce localized social capital.
Empirical evidence supporting this also explains the rise and fall of Robert Putnam’s national indicators of social capital,
which have moved in lock-step with the number of children per household.
For helpful comments on earlier drafts, I thank without implicating Eric Brunner, Paul Carrington, Timothy Goodspeed, William
Hoyt, Myron Lieberman, Robert Putnam, Lisa Snell, Jon Sonstelie, Michelle White, John Yinger, and two ananymous referees. |
| |
Keywords: | H4 (public goods) H7 (state and local finance) I22 (education finance) Z13 (social capital) |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|