Human capital and inequality dynamics: The role of education technology

Jean Marie Viaene*, Itzhak Zilcha

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The paper offers a unified way to examine several puzzles on inequality dynamics. It focuses on differences in the education technology and their effects on income distributions. Our overlapping generations economy has the following features: (1) consumers are heterogenous with respect to ability and parental human capital; and (2) intergenerational transfers take place via parental direct investment in education and, public education financed by taxes (possibly, with a level determined by majority voting). We explore several variations in the production of human capital, some attributed to 'home-education' and others related to 'public-education', and indicate how various changes in education technologies affect the intragenerational income inequality along the equilibrium path.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)760-778
Number of pages19
JournalEconomica
Volume76
Issue number304
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2009

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