UConn School of Public Policy (SPP) Professor Eric Brunner published research on wind energy and education finance this year.
In June, Eric published “Commercial Wind Energy Installations and Local Economic Development: Evidence from U.S. Counties” in Volume 165 of Energy Policy with Master of Public Administration (MPA) alum David Schwegman. They examined the impact of wind energy installation on local economies of counties in the United States. Utilizing data from 1995-2018, they focused on commercial wind energy installation.
Their research found that wind energy installation led to economically meaningful increases in county GDP per-capita, income per-capita, median household income and median home values. In turn they found little effect on total employment with a shift from farm to non-farm employment. The impact varied significantly by installed capacity and by county urban/rural status.
They concluded the following implications as most important:
(1) wind energy increases the size of the local economy and increase local incomes, but it does not stop population decline;
(2) the size of these benefits increase at an increasing rate with the amount of installed generating capacity per-capita; and
(3) rural communities with multiple installations and a greater amount of wind energy capacity benefit the most economically from these installations (Brunner & Schwegman).
Eric and David were also published in Education Finance and Policy with a paper entitled “How Much Does Public School Facility Funding Depend on Property Wealth?” Their work examines how funding for public school facilities varies with school district property wealth and household income.
They utilized data on school funding from fiscal years 1986-87 to 2015-16 in California. The team found that funding varied widely across districts and was driven by inter-district differences in property wealth. A negative correlation was also found between assessed value per-pupil and share of disadvantaged students and students of color. The duo noted, “as a result, school facility funding tends to be substantially lower in districts with the highest concentrations of disadvantaged students and students of color (Brunner & Schwegman).”