School district consolidation in a club goods framework

Abstract

<p>The provision of school district services has been incorporated into the theoretical framework of a club good model. Within this model it is possible to show the potential for benefit or harm from consolidation;When considering school district consolidation it is important to consider the interaction of quality, expenditures, and preferences to analyze the potential for success. The club good model provides this framework;The model produces an ambiguity, however, and it is resolved by first estimating school quality with a multiple input, multiple cause model and then using ordinary least squares to estimate average expenditure curves for different quality levels. This estimation results in knowledge about the interaction of quality and efficiency.</p>