Kurt R. Anschel

Estimating Educational Production Functions for Rural High Schools: Some Findings

This study construed the formal educative process of students in five rural high schools in Kentucky in a production function context. The student was used as the basic observational unit and the curriculum as the basic educative unit. Production relationships were found to be significantly different between curricula.

Migration and Return Migration: A New Look at the Eastern Kentucky Migration Stream

Most studies of the economics of migration have implicitly assumed that migratory streams are homogeneous. However, migratory streams from one region to another consist of two distinct streams: a stream of first-time migrants and a stream of return migrants moving back to their area of origin. In fact, a substantial proportion of all U.S. migration is return migration, 14 percent from 1955 to 1960. Moreover, in states with histories of substantial out-migration, an even greater proportion of in-migrants are returnees, 35.4 percent between 1955 and 1960. Yet, economists have largely ignored return migration in their attempts to explain changes in the labor force.

Benefits, Costs, and Distributional Consequences of a Publicly Assisted Marketing Cooperative

During the last two decades, public policy makers have recognized a need to enhance the earning capacity of low income rural residents. For the rural population now supplementing minimal incomes with income from agricultural production, current policy instruments are slow in effect. Designed primarily for long-run development of nonagricultural employment through industrialization and the enhancement of human capital through schooling, such policies largely ignore small farms as a transitional source of income and employment. An exception to this general tendency, Title III of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 planned to strengthen the income earning capacity of small farm households. Although larger farms have been served by organizing cooperatively, small, low income farms have appeared limited in their ability to organize cooperatively by inadequate investment capital. Title III sought to ease this perceived capital constraint with a program of grants and loans. The primary objectives were (a) to provide the opportunity for increased farm income through productive employment and (b) to direct this income enhancement opportunity toward otherwise low income households (U.S. Congress). Existing evaluations tend to stress more the need for changes in administrative procedures than careful consideration of project benefits and costs. Where income changes have been estimated, analytic methods are unclear and leave the significance and validity of such results in doubt. The role of Title III in en-

Discussion of Financing State and Local Government Services in a Cyclical Economy

Drs. White and Musser bring an important new insight: given recent and prospective variations in inflation and income growth, stability must become an important criterion for assessing alternative local and state government fiscal systems. The 1960s was an expansionary period for U.S. and world economies. Equity, growth and efficiency appeared to be appropriate and sufficient criteria for evaluating local and state tax and expenditure systems. The economic turmoil of the 70s, however, makes it obvious we were a bit over-optimistic. Stability must be added to our list.