The Economics of Education: Human Capital, Family Background and Inequality

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Figures......Page 9
Tables......Page 11
Preface......Page 13
1 The relevance of education......Page 15
Notes......Page 27
2.1 Education as creation of minimal capabilities......Page 29
2.2 Education as investment in human capital......Page 32
2.3 The role of individual talent......Page 41
2.4 Imperfect financial markets and the indivisibility of human capital investment......Page 43
Appendix: Human capital investment in a
continuous-time model......Page 49
Notes......Page 53
3 Liquidity constraints and access to education......Page 61
3.1 Access to education and growth......Page 62
3.2 Individual demand for education and aggregate income distribution......Page 64
3.3 Data description......Page 73
3.4 Empirical analysis......Page 76
3.4.1 Primary education......Page 77
3.4.2 Secondary education......Page 81
3.4.3 Higher education......Page 86
3.5 Concluding remarks......Page 89
Notes......Page 91
4.1 Human capital formation......Page 98
4.2 Class formation and peer effects......Page 100
4.3 Integration or segregation?......Page 103
4.4 Class size......Page 108
4.5 Resource effectiveness......Page 111
4.6 Resource efficiency......Page 115
4.7 Efficiency versus equity......Page 119
Notes......Page 121
5.1 Introduction......Page 128
5.2 The demand for education when agents differ in abilities and family incomes......Page 129
5.3 An application: the choice between private and public university in Italy......Page 133
5.4 The collective choice over public or private schooling......Page 137
5.4.2 Public schooling......Page 139
5.4.3 Mixed system (public and private) schooling......Page 142
5.5 Growth and inequality under public and private schooling......Page 143
5.5.1 Private schooling......Page 144
5.5.2 Publicly financed schooling......Page 146
5.6 Education financing and school stratification......Page 149
5.7 The school voucher as a solution?......Page 155
5.8 Subsidising or lending?......Page 159
5.9 Summing up......Page 161
Appendix: Income inequality in a neoclassical model of growth......Page 162
Notes......Page 164
6.2 The productivity of human capital......Page 177
6.3 Effort-enhancing preferences......Page 183
6.4 Education as a signal or as a screening device......Page 190
6.5 On-the-job training......Page 199
6.6 Measuring the return on education......Page 206
6.7 Estimating the return on education......Page 214
Notes......Page 217
7.1 Introduction......Page 229
7.2 An initial model of intergenerational persistence......Page 237
7.3 Intergenerational persistence with perfect information on children’s talent......Page 241
7.4 Intergenerational persistence with imperfect information on children’s talent......Page 245
7.5 Intergenerational persistence and equilibrium inequality under imperfect information on talent......Page 248
7.6 What we know from empirical analysis......Page 253
Notes......Page 255
References......Page 266
Subject index......Page 286
Author index......Page 289