Residential income segregation within local political jurisdictions has risen considerably since 1980 in the U.S. Despite this trend, and a growing body of research on wealth inequality and its impact on public sector size, income segregation's own influence over local public choice has not been thoroughly investigated. Using block-group income distributions for the years 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010 income segregation is measured for individual U.S. municipalities and school districts, where the spatial distribution of income may carry the most political relevance. Estimates indicate that rising income segregation reduced per-capita spending growth considerably for both municipalities and school districts. These findings are robust to various model specifications and to the use of instrumental variables that adjust for the potential endogeneity of local income segregation. This evidence is consistent with the view that intra-jurisdictional income segregation undermines trust between community members and complicates collective action. However, a-spatial income inequality continues to be positively correlated with local public sector size, as suggested by recent empirical research.

自 1980 年以来，美国地方政治管辖范围内的居民收入隔离显着增加。尽管有这种趋势，而且越来越多的关于财富不平等及其对公共部门规模影响的研究，收入隔离本身对地方公共选择的影响尚未得到彻底调查。使用 1980 年、1990 年、2000 年和 2010 年的分组收入分配，衡量美国各个城市和学区的收入隔离，在这些地方，收入的空间分配可能具有最大的政治相关性。估计表明，收入隔离的加剧大大降低了市政当局和学区的人均支出增长。这些发现对于各种模型规范和工具变量的使用都是稳健的，这些工具变量针对地方收入隔离的潜在内生性进行了调整。这一证据与以下观点一致，即辖区内的收入隔离破坏了社区成员之间的信任并使集体行动复杂化。然而，正如最近的实证研究表明的那样，a-空间收入不平等继续与当地公共部门规模呈正相关。