Essays on the Economic Effect of School Finance Policies

This dissertation consists of three chapters empirically analyzing how households and state-local governments respond to economic incentives created by school finance policies. The first chapter analyzes what effect school capital investments have on housing values and household location choice. If the benefit of school capital investments outweighs the potential increase in local taxes, it would create an incentive for households to move into communities with school capital investments so that school capital investments may increase housing values in the context of the Tiebout model. My research identifies an exogenous variation in school capital investments by exploiting the lottery allocation of entitlement to an interest-free construction bond among districts in California. Although the lottery is exogenous, additional non-lottery allocation complicates identification. I develop an empirical model based on a sample selection method to create a counterfactual state in which additional non-lottery allocation would not have existed. I find that receiving the interest-free construction bond increases school capital expenditure and housing values at the district level. I find little evidence for the effect of the bond on household sorting and student’s academic outcomes. The second chapter studies the centralization of school finance in Michigan and its consequence for school revenue and spending. In an attempt to reduce spending disparities between rich and poor school districts, the Michigan state government centralized a school finance system by restricting local discretion on raising school revenue and increasing grants to district governments. Previous theoretical studies suggest that the centralization could reduce the level of school spending, but the empirical evidence is limited in the literature. Using the district-level panel data on school finance in Michigan and 4 neighboring states for the period of fiscal year 1990-2004, I estimate the effect of the centralization on the level of school revenue and spending and find that the centralization significantly levels down school revenue and spending. The third chapter investigates how households value the school finance reform’s fiscal package in the case of the Michigan reform by estimating the effect on housing values, based on the Tiebout model in which fiscal attractiveness is capitalized into housing values. Although the previous studies have examined how U.S. states school finance reforms affect school resources and educational outcomes, there exists little literature on whether they are fiscally attractive to households beyond the effect on them. My research fills this gap in the literature. I find that the reform increases median housing values in Michigan, having a greater positive effect on housing values in wealthier communities. It implies that the reform benefits Michigan households on average but benefits wealthier households more

Fabrication of a tungsten master stamp using self-ordered porous alumina

We describe the preparation of a tungsten pillar nanoimprint stamp without the use of lithography and etching techniques. Structures with heights of 15 nm were prepared on the basis of self-ordered porous alumina templates and this was followed by DC sputtering of tungsten. The stamp was successfully used to prepare an aluminium surface to obtain highly ordered porous anodic alumina films after a single anodization step. The preparation efficiency for highly ordered porous alumina was dramatically improved as compared to the more conventional two-step anodization–strip-anodization method, as a sacrificial layer with a thickness of a few hundred micrometres was not required. In addition, by fractal calculations, we have evaluated the degree of ordering of the asperities on the nanoimprint master stamp

Electrostatic capacitance of TiO_2 nanowires in a porous alumina template

Titanium oxide (TiO_2) nanowires were prepared for an electrolytic capacitor application by the automatic dipping technique using a porous alumina template. The automatic dipping technique allows us to exactly control the dipping rate so that we can obtain homogenous infiltration of nanowires in the porous alumina membrane, even though the solution is very acidic. From the TEM, SEM and XRD measurements, we confirmed that anatase phase TiO2 nanowires are highly infiltrated into the porous alumina template. In addition, the electrostatic capacitance of nanowires was measured and compared with a theoretical calculation using an effective thickness (delta e). We found that the effective thickness corresponds to the mean radius of nanowires and the experimental measurements were in good agreement with the calculations

A Highly Sensitive Enzyme-Amplified Immunosensor Based on a Nanoporous Niobium Oxide (Nb2O5) Electrode

We report on the development of an enzyme-amplified sandwich-type immunosensor based on a thin gold film sputtered on an anodic nanoporous niobium oxide (Au@Nb2O5) electrode. The electrocatalytic activity of enzymatically amplified electroactive species and a stable electrode consisting of Au@Nb2O5 were used to obtain a powerful signal amplification of the electrochemical immunobiosensor. The method using this electrochemical biosensor based on an Au@Nb2O5 electrode provides a much better performance than those based on conventional bulk gold or niobium oxide electrodes. Our novel approach does not require any time-consuming cleaning steps to yield reproducible electrochemical signals. In addition, the strong adhesion of gold films on the niobium oxide electrodes offers a very stable substrate during electrochemical biosensing. Cyclic voltammetry measurements indicate that non-specific binding of proteins to the modified Au@Nb2O5 surface is sufficiently low to be ignored in the case of our novel system. Finally, we demonstrated the ability of the biosensor based on an Au@Nb2O5 offering the enhanced performance with a high resolution and sensitivity. Therefore, it is expected that the biosensor based on an Au@Nb2O5 has great potential for highly efficient biological devices

Nanoporous Silicified Phospholipids and Application to Controlled Glycolic Acid Release

This work demonstrates the synthesis and characterization of novel nanoporous silicified phospholipid bilayers assembled inorganic powders. The materials are obtained by silicification process with silica precursor at the hydrophilic region of phospholipid bilayers. This process involves the co-assembly of a chemically active phospholipids bilayer within the ordered porosity of a silica matrix and holds promise as a novel application for controlled drug release or drug containers with a high level of specificity and throughput. The controlled release application of the synthesized materials was achieved to glycolic acid, and obtained a zero-order release pattern due to the nanoporosity