Should I Stay (in School) or Should I Go (to Work)

Lee Tyrrell-Hendry

Journal of Public Economics, 2024, vol. 239, issue C

Abstract: I explore optimal education subsidies and progressivity of labour taxes in a model with stochastic human capital accumulation and incomplete markets, endogenous labour supply and an education choice modelled as a real option, where agents choose an optimal number of years to study before starting work. In a purely analytical Baseline model with tight borrowing constraints on students, which leads to a no-trade equilibrium without savings, the government pays for education via transfers to students or – equivalently – via grants to universities. The social welfare-maximising policy features generous education subsidies and highly progressive labour taxes, much more so than currently seen in the US or Europe, and results in an average consumption-equivalent gain of 8%. This result is robust to myriad extensions, including a Quantitative model with relaxed financial frictions where students can borrow to finance their education, and where hence the equilibrium features extensive precautionary saving by workers.

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Public economics; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272724001622
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:239:y:2024:i:c:s0047272724001622

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105226

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().