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Tuition fees: User prices and private incentives

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  • Economides, George
  • Philippopoulos, Apostolis
  • Sakkas, Stelios

Abstract

This paper studies the aggregate and distributional implications of introducing tuition fees for public education services into a tax system with income and consumption taxes. The setup is a neoclassical growth model where agents differ in capital holdings. We show that the introduction of tuition fees (a) improves individual incentives to work and/or save and (b) can be both efficient and equitable. The focus is on the role of tuition fees as an extra price and how this affects private incentives.

Suggested Citation

  • Economides, George & Philippopoulos, Apostolis & Sakkas, Stelios, 2017. "Tuition fees: User prices and private incentives," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 91-103.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:48:y:2017:i:c:p:91-103
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2016.08.008
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    Cited by:

    1. George Economides & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2020. "On the Provision of Excludable Public Goods - General Taxes or User Prices?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8724, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    User prices; Tax mix; Efficiency; Equity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

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