Systematic, Political, and Socioeconomic Influences on Educational Spending in the American States¹

Abstract

For decades, scholars have debated the relative explanatory power of economic and political factors in determining policy outputs. In addition, I introduce a new concept, "systematic determinants," which includes incrementalism and proportionalism. Policy spending is likely to change only marginally, or incrementally, from previous spending levels. Also, the relative sizes of policy programs in a government are likely to remain similar, or proportional.In my study of the elementary and secondary educational spending by the state governments of the United States in 2000, I found that the systematic determinants, such as incrementalism and proportionalism, have a greater influence on the educational spending. Also, my finding shows that Democratic-majority legislative chambers are likely to increase educational spending.

An Analysis of the Determinants of Education Expenditure in Thailand

“…Because attempts to institutionalize ambitious social policy schemes often go along with centralization, a state structure with many institutional veto points slows down the expansion of welfare spending (Hicks & Swank, ; Huber & Stephens, ). This coincides with the work of Saeki (), which argues that the size of unionization in states is likely to influence state educational spending per pupil.…”

“…In Saeki's () study, it is found that systematic determinants, such as incrementalism, have a greater influence on educational spending. The recent works of Tandberg (, ) also lend more support to the significance and the hypothesis of incrementalism theory.…”

“…The recent works of Tandberg (, ) also lend more support to the significance and the hypothesis of incrementalism theory. In the work of Radcliff and Saiz () and Saeki (), it is shown that the size of educational spending is largely influenced by the size of the government.…”

“…A number of studies, using economic theory background and international comparisons, have analyzed the dynamics of education policy, particularly the determinants of education expenditure (Fernandez & Rogerson, ; Hanushek & Rivkin, ; Ram, ). Some studies analyze public expenditure from a decision‐making approach, using cross‐country analysis (Saeki, ; Tandberg, ). Although cross‐country analyses are theoretically valuable, previous studies have found them uninformative in pointing out the determinants of policy goals (Kraay, ).…”

Incremental State Higher Education Expenditures

“…A more recent discussion of the incremental theory is provided by Saeki (2005). 9 This is not intended to imply that the incremental model is the only accurate description of state higher education expenditures.…”