American Economic Journal: Economic Policy · 2021 · C. Kirabo Jackson、Cora Wigger、Heyu Xiong
中文摘要
大衰退期间，全国公立学校生均支出下降约7%，且持续到复苏之后。如此大规模且持续的教育经费削减的影响尚不为人所充分理解。为考察这一问题，本文首先记录到，经济衰退导致的支出下降恰逢数十年来全国考试成绩与大学入学率增长双双终结。接着，本文表明，这种停滞的教育进展在那些因看似外生原因而经历更大幅度衰退期预算削减的州尤为明显。为分离出与(i)衰退的其他不利影响或(ii)内生性州政策无关的预算削减，本文使用各州历史上对州拨资金（对经济周期更敏感）资助公立学校的依赖程度与经济衰退时点的交互项，作为学校支出削减的工具变量。暴露于这些支出削减的队列考试成绩更低、大学入学率更低。支出削减导致按收入和种族划分的考试成绩差距扩大。
Abstract
During the Great Recession, national public school per-pupil spending fell by roughly 7 percent and persisted beyond the recovery. The impact of such large and sustained education funding cuts is not well understood. To examine this, first, we document that the recessionary drop in spending coincided with the end of decades-long national growth in both test scores and college-going. Next, we show that this stalled educational progress was particularly pronounced in states that experienced larger recessionary budget cuts for plausibly exogenous reasons. To isolate budget cuts that were unrelated to (i) other ill-effects of the recession or (ii) endogenous state policies, we use states’ historical reliance on state-appropriated funds (which are more sensitive to the business cycle) to fund public schools interacted with the timing of the recession as instruments for reductions in school spending. Cohorts exposed to these spending cuts had lower test scores and lower college-going rates. The spending cuts led to larger test score gaps by income and race.