IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v36y2004i15p1677-1684.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economies of scale, school violence and the optimal size of schools

Author

Listed:
  • J. S. Ferris
  • E. G. West

Abstract

This article argues that policy in relation to education has relied too extensively on the more easily measured costs of production to support a common conclusion of economies of scale in school and/or district size. It argues that there are external costs that increase with size but that can be measured less easily that offset this case. This would imply that the tendency within the education profession to advocate ever-larger school sizes is premature at best. To make the case, it models the choice of school size to emphasize that costs, such as school violence, born by both students and their parents but not (necessarily) by education administrators may result in school sizes that are too big from the perspective of school users. The second and third parts of the article introduces evidence to suggest that school violence is one of these external costs.

Suggested Citation

  • J. S. Ferris & E. G. West, 2004. "Economies of scale, school violence and the optimal size of schools," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(15), pages 1677-1684.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:36:y:2004:i:15:p:1677-1684
    DOI: 10.1080/0003684042000266856
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0003684042000266856
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0003684042000266856?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anderson, D. Mark & Hansen, Benjamin & Walker, Mary Beth, 2013. "The minimum dropout age and student victimization," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 66-74.
    2. Leung, Ambrose & Ferris, J. Stephen, 2008. "School size and youth violence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 318-333, February.
    3. Wei, Hsi-Sheng & Williams, James Herbert & Chen, Ji-Kang & Chang, Hsiu-Yu, 2010. "The effects of individual characteristics, teacher practice, and school organizational factors on students' bullying: A multilevel analysis of public middle schools in Taiwan," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 137-143, January.
    4. Gabriela Schütz, 2009. "Educational institutions and equality of opportunity," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 34.
    5. Schwartz, Amy Ellen & Stiefel, Leanna & Wiswall, Matthew, 2016. "Are all schools created equal? Learning environments in small and large public high schools in New York City," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 272-290.
    6. Saïd Hanchane & Tarek Mostafa, 2007. "School Choice : income, Peer effect and the formation of Inequalities," Working Papers halshs-00009533, HAL.
    7. Tarek Mostafa & Saïd Hanchane, 2007. "Educational Quality, Communities, and Public School Choice: a Theoretical Analysis," Working Papers halshs-00177630, HAL.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:36:y:2004:i:15:p:1677-1684. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.