IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Asymmetric Information And Overeducation

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Mendolicchio Concetta

    ()

    (Institute for Employment Research - IAB)

  • Paolini Dimitri

    ()

    (Université Catholique de Louvain)

  • Pietra Tito

    ()

    (Università di Bologna)

Abstract

We consider an economy where production may use labor of two different skill levels. Workers are heterogeneous and, by investing in education, self-select into one of the two skills. Ex-ante, when firms choose their investments in physical capital, they do not know the level of human capital prevailing in the labor market they will be active in. We prove existence and constrained inefficiency of competitive equilibria, which are always characterized by overeducation. An increase in total expected surplus can be obtained by shrinking, at the margin, the set of workers investing in high skills. This can be implemented by imposing taxes on the cost of investing in high skills or by imposing a progressive labor earning tax.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bejeap.2012.12.issue-1/1935-1682.3259/1935-1682.3259.xml?format=INT
Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by De Gruyter in its journal The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy.

Volume (Year): 12 (2012)
Issue (Month): 1 (October)
Pages: 1-29

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:12:y:2012:i:1:n:47
Contact details of provider: Web page: https://www.degruyter.com

Order Information: Web: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bejeap

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
  • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Fleurbaey,Marc & Maniquet,François, 2011. "A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521715348.
  2. Holzner, Christian & Launov, Andrey, 2010. "Search equilibrium and social and private returns to education," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 39-59, January.
  3. Concetta Mendolicchio & Dimitri Paolini & Tito Pietra, 2014. "Income Taxes, Subsidies to Education, and Investments in Human Capital," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(1), pages 24-47, 02.
  4. Oppedisano, Veruska, 2011. "The (adverse) effects of expanding higher education: Evidence from Italy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 997-1008, October.
  5. Willis, Robert J & Rosen, Sherwin, 1979. "Education and Self-Selection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 7-36, October.
  6. Schmerer, Hans-Jörg, 2014. "Foreign direct investment and search unemployment: Theory and evidence," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 41-56.
  7. Chinhui Juhn & Dae Il Kim & Francis Vella, 2005. "The Expansion of College Education in the United States: Is There Evidence of Declining Cohort Quality?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(2), pages 303-315, April.
  8. Sherwin Rosen, 2005. "Substitution And Division Of Labour," World Scientific Book Chapters,in: An Inframarginal Approach To Trade Theory, chapter 3, pages 29-51 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
  9. Pedro Carneiro & James J. Heckman & Edward J. Vytlacil, 2011. "Estimating Marginal Returns to Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2754-2781, October.
  10. Bas Jacobs & A. Lans Bovenberg, 2011. "Optimal Taxation of Human Capital and the Earnings Function," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(6), pages 957-971, December.
  11. Bas Jacobs & Dirk Schindler & Hongyan Yang, 2012. "Optimal Taxation of Risky Human Capital," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 908-931, 09.
  12. Bas Jacobs, 2005. "Optimal Income Taxation with Endogenous Human Capital," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 7(2), pages 295-315, 05.
  13. Charlot, Olivier & Decreuse, Bruno, 2005. "Self-selection in education with matching frictions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 251-267, April.
  14. Holzner, Christian & Launov, Andrey, 2010. "Search equilibrium and social and private returns to education. Eur. Econ. Rev," Munich Reprints in Economics 19435, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
  15. Daniel Heuermann & Benedikt Halfdanarson & Jens Suedekum, 2010. "Human Capital Externalities and the Urban Wage Premium: Two Literatures and their Interrelations," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(4), pages 749-767, April.
  16. Poeschel, Friedrich, 2012. "The time trend in the matching function," IAB Discussion Paper 201203, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
  17. A. Lans Bovenberg & Bas Jacobs, 2005. "Redistribution and Education Subsidies are Siamese Twins," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-036/3, Tinbergen Institute.
  18. A. D. Roy, 1951. "Some Thoughts On The Distribution Of Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 135-146.
  19. Séamus McGuinness, 2006. "Overeducation in the Labour Market," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 387-418, 07.
  20. Duranton, Gilles & Martin, Philippe & Mayer, Thierry & Mayneris, Florian, 2010. "The Economics of Clusters: Lessons from the French Experience," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199592203, April.
  21. Lans Bovenberg, A. & Jacobs, Bas, 2005. "Redistribution and education subsidies are Siamese twins," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2005-2035, December.
  22. Heckman, James J, 1976. "A Life-Cycle Model of Earnings, Learning, and Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 11-44, August.
  23. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae Lee, 2011. "Trends in Quality-Adjusted Skill Premia in the United States, 1960-2000," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2309-2349, October.
  24. Eaton, Jonathan & Rosen, Harvey S, 1980. "Taxation, Human Capital, and Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 705-715, September.
  25. Andrew Weiss, 1995. "Human Capital vs. Signalling Explanations of Wages," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 133-154, Fall.
  26. Anderberg, Dan & Andersson, Fredrik, 2003. "Investments in human capital, wage uncertainty, and public policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1521-1537, August.
  27. Heckman, James & Layne-Farrar, Anne & Todd, Petra, 1996. "Human Capital Pricing Equations with an Application to Estimating the Effect of Schooling Quality on Earnings," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(4), pages 562-610, November.
  28. Daron Acemoglu, 1996. "A Microfoundation for Social Increasing Returns in Human Capital Accumulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(3), pages 779-804.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Dauth, Wolfgang & Südekum, Jens, 2012. "Profiles of local growth and industrial change : facts and an explanation," IAB Discussion Paper 201220, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
  2. Mertens, Jean-François & Rubinchik, Anna, 2015. "Pareto Optimality Of The Golden Rule Equilibrium In An Overlapping Generations Model With Production And Transfers," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(08), pages 1780-1799, December.
  3. Mendolicchio, Concetta & Pietra, Tito, 2014. "On the efficiency properties of the Roy's model under asymmetric information," IAB Discussion Paper 201408, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
  4. DEIDDA, Luca G. & PAOLINI , Dimitri & ,, 2013. "Wage premia, education race, and supply of educated workers," CORE Discussion Papers 2013062, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:12:y:2012:i:1:n:47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Peter Golla)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.