Joint Provision of Public Goods: The Consolidation of School Districts

Abstract:     
Using Ohio metropolitan school districts, I test the factorsthat cause and inhibit political jurisdictions from jointlyproviding public services. The Poirier bivariate probitanalysis suggests that economies of scale factors are moreimportant than socio-demographic factors in determiningwhether two entities will form a joint school district.Small, property-poor districts merge, while large, property-rich districts tend not to merge. The results furthersuggest that high-income communities have relatively littleapprehension about consolidating school districts with otherhigh income communities, but that a large gap in incomebetween neighboring communities makes joint school districtformation less likely.

JEL Classification: H49, I29, R50

working papers series