Earlier studies of the determination of local public school spending have Abstract conveniently assumed that the typical family's demand is monotonic in income.
They have assumed that the voter with the median income is decisive and that
community decisrons. therefore, truly represent the preferences of the median-income voter. We present evidence that this assumption is not always tenable
and that it can lead to biases in estimation. Our model and evidence suggest that
desired local spending is a U-shaped function of income over the observed
income range and that it may eventually turn down at very high family incomes.
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