Chapter 1 introduces some of the issues which are addressed in the other chapters of this dissertation. These topics include: (1) the general equilibrium incentives in the provision of public education, (2) human capital production functions in economic modeling, (3) how public education spending may impact income inequality -- both positively and negatively, (4) the effect on public education spending of changes in the college wage premium, and (5) the overall efficiency of government-supplied capital.
Chapter 2 develops a public education system in which voters face general equilibrium incentives to pay taxes for education. Middle-aged voters can increase their returns to saving by increasing the aggregate amount of human capital in the economy. I find that if students differ by their ability to increase their human capital levels through schooling, then the public education policy will invest more education funds in more productive students; this perpetuates income inequality. Also, the greater the discount rate for consumption and the elasticity of education funds in the human capital production function, the more likely it is that a public system provides greater growth in the steady state than a private system.
Chapter 3 studies the allocation of government spending between general tuition subsidies for college students and need-based aid which is directed solely towards students from low-income households. The way to maximize the number of students may be to provide some need-based aid. I find that government provides more aid directed to low-income students if need-based tuition subsidies are provided rather than student loan subsidies. I also look at the effects of changes in parameters, such as the cost of education and the college wage premium, on the policies.
Chapter 4 investigates the returns to aggregate factors of production when labor is disaggregated by education level. I find that a model in which the error term is assumed to be state-wise heteroscedastic and autocorrelated does a better job of approximating the pattern of wages for the different education groups than other models (pooled OLS or random and fixed effects). In addition, this model suggests a significant positive elasticity for public capital. / Ph. D.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/26892 |
| Date | 20 April 1999 |
| Creators | Bowles, Robert |
| Contributors | Economics (Arts and Sciences), Rosenthal, Stuart, Murphy, Russell D., Salehi-Isfahani, Djavad, Snyder, Susan K., Tideman, Nicolaus |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | CHAP4.PDF, VITA.PDF, CHAP1.PDF, FRONT.PDF, BIBLIO.PDF, chap2.pdf, CHAP3.pdf |
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