Volume 16, Number 2 (Spring) 1981
Link, Charles R., Kenneth A. Lewis, and David E. Black. 1981. "New Evidence on the Achievement of Wealth Neutrality in School Finance." Journal of Human Resources 16(2):260-273.
Martin Feldstein provides a simple framework for analyzing one concept of equality of opportunity in school finance-wealth neutrality. When his approach is applied to Delaware, it is found that wealth neutrality can be achieved only with drastic changes in the state's school finance mechanism. One of the unique features of the study is that we allow for and find significant interdistrict differences in wealth elasticities. Such interdistrict variations are likely to make the achievement of wealth neutrality, in the Feldstein sense, very difficult.
The authors are Associate Professor, Professor, and Associate Professor of
Economics, University of Delaware.
* This paper is a small part of a larger project that involved analyzing whether
or not the Delaware state finance scheme for public elementary and secondary
education provides equal opportunity to all students in the state. Funds for the
research were provided by the U.S. Office of Education as a result of Section
842, Part D, Title VIII, Public Law 93-380. We would like to acknowledge the
helpful comments of the anonymous referee.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X