IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hpe/journl/y2017v220i1p13-55.html

Does Decentralization in the Provision of Higher Education Increase Quality of Education?

Author

Listed:
  • Joan Rosell Villalonga

    (Universitat Illes Balears)

Abstract

In this paper we analyze to what extent devolution of responsibilities in higher education to subnational levels of government affects quality of higher education. We isolate the effects on quality of education due to the type of regime of provision of public goods from those due to mobility restrictions. Our results suggest that average quality of education might be higher in a decentralized regime compared to a centralized provision, under the assumption of student mobility restrictions, since decentralized provision would allow all students with high academic performance to access higher education. In case that public expenditure in higher education by regional governments was larger to that of a central government, the previous result would be reinforced. However, this comparison is undetermined as far as the central government decided to provide higher education in each region, which would occur if fixed costs were small and if the impact on quality of education of those students that would then have access to higher education was large.

Suggested Citation

  • Joan Rosell Villalonga, 2017. "Does Decentralization in the Provision of Higher Education Increase Quality of Education?," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 220(1), pages 13-55, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:hpe:journl:y:2017:v:220:i:1:p:13-55
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ief.es/comun/Descarga.cshtml?ruta=~/docs/destacados/publicaciones/revistas/hpe/220_Art1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoxby, Caroline M., 1999. "The productivity of schools and other local public goods producers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 1-30, October.
    2. Charles T. Clotfelter & Michael Rothschild, 1993. "Studies of Supply and Demand in Higher Education," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clot93-1, January.
    3. Holger Sieg & Dennis Epple & Richard Romano, 2003. "Peer effects, financial aid and selection of students into colleges and universities: an empirical analysis," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 501-525.
    4. Rothschild, Michael & White, Lawrence J, 1995. "The Analytics of the Pricing of Higher Education and Other Services in Which the Customers Are Inputs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 573-586, June.
    5. Griffith, Amanda L. & Rothstein, Donna S., 2009. "Can't get there from here: The decision to apply to a selective college," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 620-628, October.
    6. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    7. Romero, Laura & Rey, Elena del, 2004. "Competition between public and private universities: quality, prices and exams," UC3M Working papers. Economics we046423, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    8. Caroline M. Hoxby, 1999. "The Productivity of Schools and Other Local Public Goods Providers," NBER Working Papers 6911, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 2003. "Centralized versus decentralized provision of local public goods: a political economy approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2611-2637, December.
    10. Hussain, Iftikhar & McNally, Sandra & Telhaj, Shqiponja, 2009. "University Quality and Graduate Wages in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 4043, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Merrouche, Ouarda, 2007. "The Long Term Effect of Education Spending Decentralization on Human Capital in Spain," Working Paper Series 2007:3, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    12. Sallee James M & Resch Alexandra M & Courant Paul N, 2008. "On the Optimal Allocation of Students and Resources in a System of Higher Education," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-26, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Kolpin, Van & Stater, Mark, 2024. "The perverse equilibrium effects of state and federal student aid in higher education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 679-691.
    2. Luis Alejandro L pez-Agudo & scar D. Marcenaro Guti rrez, 2019. "The Effect of Weekly Instruction Time on Academic Achievement: The Spanish Case," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 230(3), pages 63-93, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joan Rosselló Villalonga, 2013. "Stratification of Public Universities and Students’ Segregation," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 205(2), pages 99-124, June.
    2. Buerger, Christian & Lincove, Jane Arnold & Mata, Catherine, 2023. "How context shapes the relationship between school autonomy and test-scores. An explanatory analysis using PISA 2015," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    3. Joan Rosselló Villalonga, 2013. "¿Importa la calidad de las Universidades en la elección de los estudiantes?," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 207(4), pages 41-70, December.
    4. Eisenkopf, Gerald & Wohlschlegel, Ansgar, 2012. "Regulation in the market for education and optimal choice of curriculum," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 53-65.
    5. Antonio Miralles [AP BACKUP – NOW EXTERNAL] & Francisco Martinez-Mora & Antonio Miralles & Caterina Calsamiglia, 2017. "Sorting in public school districts under the Boston Mechanism," Working Papers 949, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. Longjin Chen & Jian Huang & Jianjun Li, 2017. "Fiscal Decentralization, Satisfaction with Social Services, and Inequality Under the Hukou System," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 377-394, May.
    7. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2009. "The Changing Selectivity of American Colleges," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 95-118, Fall.
    8. Joan Rosselló, 2007. "Does a public university system avoid the stratification of public universities and the segregation of students?," DEA Working Papers 26, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada.
    9. Caterina Calsamiglia & Francisco Martínez-Mora & Antonio Miralles, 2021. "School Choice Design, Risk Aversion and Cardinal Segregation," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(635), pages 1081-1104.
    10. Alaimo, Veronica & Cafagna, Gianluca & Elacqua, Gregory & Giles Álvarez, Laura & Izquierdo, Alejandro & Keefer, Philip & Martínez Von der Fecht, Matías & Vuletin, Guillermo & Moreno-Serra, Rodrigo & P, 2018. "Better Spending for Better Lives: How Latin America and the Caribbean Can Do More with Less," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 9152, June.
    11. Caterina Calsamiglia & Francisco Martínez-Mora & Antonio Miralles, 2015. "School Choice Mechanisms, Peer Effects and Sorting," Discussion Papers in Economics 15/01, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    12. Kolpin, Van & Stater, Mark, 2024. "The perverse equilibrium effects of state and federal student aid in higher education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 679-691.
    13. Gordon C. Winston, 1997. "Why Can't a College be More Like a Firm?," Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education DP-42, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    14. Désirée Teobaldelli, 2011. "Federalism and the shadow economy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 269-289, March.
    15. Lars P. Feld & Horst Zimmermann & Thomas Döring, 2003. "Föderalismus, Dezentralität und Wirtschaftswachstum," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 72(3), pages 361-377.
    16. Kis-Katos, Krisztina & Sjahrir, Bambang Suharnoko, 2017. "The impact of fiscal and political decentralization on local public investment in Indonesia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 344-365.
    17. Brueckner, Jan K., 2006. "Fiscal federalism and economic growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 2107-2120, November.
    18. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Dahmani-Scuitti, Anaïs, 2025. "Decentralization in Autocraties," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    19. Pierre Salmon, 2006. "Horizontal Competition Among Governments," Chapters, in: Ehtisham Ahmad & Giorgio Brosio (ed.), Handbook of Fiscal Federalism, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Raúl A Ponce-Rodríguez & Charles R Hankla & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Eunice Heredia-Ortiz, 2018. "Rethinking the Political Economy of Decentralization: How Elections and Parties Shape the Provision of Local Public Goods," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 48(4), pages 523-558.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hpe:journl:y:2017:v:220:i:1:p:13-55. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Miguel Gómez de Antonio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iefgves.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.