The Effects of School Spending on Educational and Economic Outcomes (court-ordered finance reforms)
Jackson, C. K., Johnson, R. C., & Persico, C. · 2016
grade Bnatural-experimentindependentreplicatednumbers spot-checked
Sample
PSID cohorts born 1955-85
Population
US children spanning court-ordered school-finance reforms.
Design
Exogenous reform-timing variation; long-run registry-style outcomes.
Key findings
Overturned the blanket 'money doesn't matter': money bought real inputs (smaller classes, teacher pay, longer years) for poor children in a low-spending era and moved lifetime outcomes.
Genetic confound
Reform timing plausibly orthogonal to family genotype.
Replication notes
Verified. Confirmed on modern test data by Lafortune et al. 2018.
DOI / URL
10.1093/qje/qjv036
Effects
| Outcome | Metric | Value | Measure | Timing | Vs | Horizon | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10% more spending x 12 school years, full sample | outcomes | +0.31 years education; ~+7% wages; -3.2pp adult poverty | standardized | adult | business-as-usual | adulthood | attainment |
| Low-income children | outcomes | +0.46 years; +9.6% wages; -6.1pp poverty — effects concentrated among the poor, small for the affluent | standardized | adult | business-as-usual | adulthood | attainment |
Cited by
- School spending, charters, and what school-level choices actually move outcomesmixedconf: highgc: low