Few people would object to parents spending their money on improving opportunities for their children, yet this inevitably creates educational disparities among children. Education, he adds, is such a sensitive issue because a person's life prospects are so heavily influenced by his formal schooling. It bothers us that a person's lot in life can be determined by his parents' lack of wealth. Government involvement in public education is only one area of interest for Wildasin. He is also interested in the funding of local public services and the effect this has on a community.
Economists talk about people voting with their feet.
He adds that migration can usually be seen as dramatic only over a period of years, and that local governments in their response to citizens' needs can rarely boast of huge successes or lament significant failures. When I lived in Washington, D.C., working with the World Bank in the Policy Research Department in 1996-1997, the city was coming close to being a significant failure. In the past decade, Wildasin has been focusing on public finance in the context of European economic integration and in developing countries where rapid reform of governmental institutions is leading to a rethinking of how governments should be financed and what their basic functions should be.