EDUCATION
Robert Bifulco's research focuses on evaluating the impacts of educational policies, the causes and consequences of school segregation, and New York State fiscal issues. He recently received a grant from the New York State Education Research Consortium to examine issues in charter school finance. Recent papers include:
CPR Working Paper No. 109. Public School Choice and Integration: Evidence from Durham, North Carolina. Robert Bifulco, Helen F. Ladd, and Stephen Ross. September 2008. 44 pp.
William Duncombe has focused his research on school finance, education policy, and state and local finance. Currently, he and John Yinger are working on research projects related to the design of school aid formulas and property tax relief plans. He is associate director of the Education Finance and Accountability Project (EFAP). Duncombe has also been chosen as the 2009 Wildavsky Award recipient, an annual award of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM) given to a distinguished scholar in the field for lifetime achievement.
Amy Lutz conducts research on children of immigrants, bilingualism, and educational inequalities. She is currently working on a project that examines the transition from school to work among children of immigrants in France and the United States. She is also working on a collaborative project on the relationship between families and schools and the role of race, class, and immigration status on parenting and educational outcomes
Jerry Miner An annual lecture is sponsored by EFAP and named in honor of Emeritus Professor of Economics Jerry Miner, an EFAP faculty associate who is widely known for his research in public finance in general and education finance in particular, and who may be the only person on earth who understands the New York State Education aid formulas.
Ross Rubenstein’s research focuses on education policy and finance and public budgeting. His recent and current research includes studies on the effects of grade span organization on student performance, within-district school finance equity and budgeting, and the impact of the Syracuse Say Yes to Education program on student demographics and property values in the city.
Jeffrey Weinstein specializes in economics of education, urban economics, and public economics. His current research examines important policy-relevant questions using natural experiments in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public School District, North Carolina. One project uses administrative data surrounding school redistricting under busing for racial desegregation to examine the impact that school and peer characteristics have on both immediate and long-run academic performance, including test scores and college graduation. Additional projects exploit changes in school assignments that coincided with the termination of busing for racial desegregation to study the effect of large changes in school racial compositions on neighborhood racial compositions and housing prices. Because the changes in school assignments came directly from racial integration policies, the results can be tied directly to current student assignment policy debates.
John Yinger, Director of CPR’s Education Finance and Accountability Program, continues his research on education finance and on discrimination in housing and credit markets. His current research includes projects on the stimulative impact of alternative state education aid programs, the fiscal incentives in California’s education finance system, and the impacts of student test scores, neighborhood ethnicity, and commuting time on property values. Recent papers include:
CPR Working Paper No. 114. Hedonic Markets and Explicit Demands: Bid-Function Envelopes for Public Services, Neighborhood Amenities, and Commuting Costs. John Yinger. March 2009. 71 pp.
For more information about CPR programs and research projects, contact Peggy Austin. You may also obtain general information about CPR by calling +1 315-443-3114, or by sending an email to ctrpol@syr.edu.