Volume 11, Number 1 (Winter) 1976
Clotfelter, Charles T. 1976. "School Desegregation, 'Tipping,' and Private School Enrollment." Journal of Human Resources 11(1):28-50.
This paper examines the role of school desegregation in the demand for private school enrollment by whites. A model is presented that emphasizes the interdependence of whites' private enrollment decisions and introduces the possibility of "tipping points" in white flight from public schools. In order to assess the importance of racial composition on white private school enrollment, data from two samples are analyzed. This empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that desegregation has a significant effect on private school enrollment and that this effect is greater in districts with high proportions of nonwhites.
The author is Assistant Professor of Economics, Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of Maryland. I would like to thank Martin Feldstein, Richard Freeman, John Kain, Thomas Schelling, members of the Harvard labor seminar, and the editor and a referee of this Journal for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. Support was provided by the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the University of Maryland Computer Science Center.
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