A “Resource Curse” for Education?: Deepening Education Disparities in Pennsylvania’s Shale Gas Boomtowns

Abstract

In Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region, the recent shale gas boom profoundly reshaped communities, local institutions, and living circumstances for many residents. We focus on one particular local institution – the public school – to investigate the relationship between unconventional gas development and education funding. Using geographic information systems software, we identify unconventional drilling activity between 2007 and 2015 and link unconventional drilling point data with district-level state and federal data. We then use techniques from the matching literature to explore the relationship between unconventional drilling and the distribution of educational resources and opportunities. Evidence from our analysis suggests that, on average, districts experiencing unconventional drilling had lower per pupil revenues, locally-raised per pupil funding for schools, per pupil income, and per pupil property wealth than very similar districts that did not experience unconventional drilling.