 Regulation of Program Supply in Higher Education: Lessons from a Funding System Reform in FlandersCESifo Economic Studies, 2008, vol. 54, issue 2, 204-228 Abstract: It has become well documented that the performance gap between European and US universities is at least partly due to lower spending on higher education in Europe. Rather than raising the public budget or promoting private contributions, many governments have attempted to make public spending more efficient in various ways. This article reports the results from a proposed funding system reform in Flanders (Belgium), which aimed to save costs by reducing the diversity and duplication of study programs. We draw the following lessons. While reducing program diversity may save on fixed costs, this is typically insufficient to compensate for consumer surplus losses due to low student mobility. Furthermore, decentralized financial incentives mechanisms may be ineffective since they may often promote program cuts when this is undesirable, and vice versa. These findings illustrate the difficulties with regulatory reforms that mainly aim to reduce costs. Hence, the question how to raise total spending on higher education (whether through public or private means) cannot be avoided. (JEL codes: I20; I23; C25) Copyright , Oxford University Press. Date: 2008 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:54:y:2008:i:2:p:204-228 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article CESifo Economic Studies is currently edited by Panu Poutvaara More articles in CESifo Economic Studies from CESifo Group Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.