Life Cycle Locational Choices, Voting, and Fiscal Federalism: Theory and Estimation

目的：广泛的研究已经确定，学校质量是影响家庭在大都市地区选择居住地点的关键因素，并且在拥有优秀学生的公立学校的社区，房价溢价普遍存在。迄今为止的研究主要集中在当地市政当局和学区在特定时间点的比较上。我们的研究将扩展这一分析，以研究家庭居住地点决策在生命周期中的变化。有学龄子女的家庭更喜欢有优质公立学校的地区，而有学龄子女的家庭则更喜欢房价较低、公立学校质量较差的地区。家庭对各种公共服务的偏好也可能随着生命周期而改变，年轻家庭重视教育，而老年家庭更重视社会服务。与教育支出相比，老年家庭可能更倾向于降低税收。我们的研究将研究地理位置在整个生命周期中的动态变化，以及社区内地方税收和支出政策代际差异的相关潜力。我们已经开始研究这个课题了。我们提议的工作将推进我们已经开始的议程。智力优势：首先，我们将考虑家庭规模、房屋所有权和偏好的差异。考虑到家庭规模的变化，将使我们能够对比不同子女数量家庭的生命周期住房消费和地点选择。将住房所有权纳入其中，可以研究对资本收益和损失的担忧在多大程度上促使没有孩子的业主居住者（“空巢老人”和没有孩子的年轻家庭）支持增加财产价值的教育支出。结合偏好变化将使我们能够解释一些因素，如对朋友、邻居和熟悉环境的依恋程度的差异，这些因素会影响人们在生命周期中是否搬迁的决定。其次，我们将探讨公共提供不同类型的投票物品、跨社区的家庭分类以及生命周期流动模式的影响。第三，我们将收集新的数据集，研究不同社区人口组成的差异、社区人口组成随时间的变化以及税收和支出模式的变化。更广泛的影响：我们提出的研究可以解决许多政策问题。教育改革中的重要问题包括对替代性学校选择计划的研究、支出均衡计划的影响以及大城市学区的竞争力。我们还计划评估住房市场政策，例如旨在提高低收入家庭住房拥有率的计划，或类似于“搬家到机会”计划中使用的搬迁补贴。我们将研究美国人口老龄化对家庭搬迁决策、社区组成、社区支出模式和获得经济机会的影响。

Objective: Extensive research has established that school quality is a key factor influencing households' choices of where to reside within a metropolitan area and that housing price premiums prevail for neighborhoods with public schools that have high-achieving students. Research to date has focused largely on comparisons across local municipalities and school districts at a given point in time. Our research will extend this analysis to study how household residential location decisions vary over the life cycle. It is natural to expect that households will prefer locations with good quality public schools when they have school-age children while preferring locations with lower housing prices and lower quality public schools when their children have left school. Household preferences for types of public services can also be expected to change over the life cycle, with young households valuing education and older households placing greater value on social services. Older households may also favor lower taxes in preference to expenditures for education. Our research will study the dynamics of location over the life cycle and the associated potential for a generational divide about local tax and expenditure policies within communities. We have already begun research on this topic. Our proposed work will advance the agenda we have begun. Intellectual merit: First, we will incorporate variation in family size, home ownership, and preferences. Incorporating variation in family size will permit us to contrast life cycle housing consumption and location choices of households with differing numbers of children. Incorporating home ownership will permit study of the extent to which concerns for capital gains and losses induce owner occupants who do not have children ("empty nesters" and young households without children) to support spending for education that increases property values. Incorporating preference variation will permit us to account for factors such as differences in the extent to which attachments to friends, neighbors, and familiar surroundings influence decisions about whether to relocate over the life cycle. Second, we will explore the implications of public provision of different types of goods for voting, household sorting across communities, and life cycle mobility patterns. Third, we will assemble a new data set to study differences in demographic composition across communities, changes in community demographic composition over time, and changes in tax and expenditure patterns. Broader impact: There are a number of policy issues that can be addressed with our proposed research. Important issues in education reform include the study of alternative school choice plans, the effect of expenditure equalization programs, and the competitiveness of large urban school districts. We also plan to evaluate housing market policies such as programs that are aimed at increasing housing ownership among lower income households or relocation subsidies similar to those used in "moving to opportunity" programs. We will study implications of an aging U.S. population for household relocation decisions, the composition of communities, the expenditure patterns of communities, and access to economic opportunities.