IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ivi/wpasad/2011-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financing public education: a political economy model with altruistic agents and retirement concerns

Author

Listed:
  • Amedeo Piolatto

    (Universidad de Alicante)

Abstract

Public services provision depends on tax proceeds. The tax rate to finance public school is chosen through majority voting. Under the monotonicity condition implying that the preferred tax rate is decreasing in income, the literature predicts that the median voter is decisive and poor agents form a coalition against rich agents. I show that this does not occur and a coalition of the type "ends against the middle" occurs if agents care about others' level of education. I use a OLG model, in which adults are altruist and retirees’ pension depends on average education (used as a proxy for productivity).

Suggested Citation

  • Amedeo Piolatto, 2011. "Financing public education: a political economy model with altruistic agents and retirement concerns," Working Papers. Serie AD 2011-12, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    • Handle: RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2011-12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ivie.es/downloads/docs/wpasad/wpasad-2011-12.pdf
    File Function: Fisrt version / Primera version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Pecchenino, Rowena A. & Pollard, Patricia S., 2002. "Dependent children and aged parents: funding education and social security in an aging economy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 145-169, June.
    3. Griliches, Zvi & Mason, William M, 1972. "Education, Income, and Ability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(3), pages 74-103, Part II, .
    4. Robert Dur, 2004. "Should Higher Education Subsidies Depend on Parental Income?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 20(2), pages 284-297, Summer.
    5. Michele Boldrin & Ana Montes, 2005. "The Intergenerational State Education and Pensions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 651-664.
    6. Cattaneo, M. Alejandra & Wolter, Stefan C., 2009. "Are the elderly a threat to educational expenditures?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 225-236, June.
    7. Epple, Dennis & Figlio, David & Romano, Richard, 2004. "Competition between private and public schools: testing stratification and pricing predictions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1215-1245, July.
    8. Kaganovich, Michael & Zilcha, Itzhak, 1999. "Education, social security, and growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 289-309, February.
    9. Amedeo Piolatto, 2015. "Itemised Deductions: A Device to Reduce Tax Evasion," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 16(4), pages 422-438, November.
    10. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2005. "Fortunate Sons: New Estimates of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States Using Social Security Earnings Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 235-255, May.
    11. Thomas Lemieux, 2006. "Postsecondary Education and Increasing Wage Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 195-199, May.
    12. Amedeo Piolatto, 2011. "Financing public education: a political economy model with altruistic agents and retirement concerns," Working Papers. Serie AD 2011-12, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    13. Bernt Bratsberg & Knut Røed & Oddbjørn Raaum & Robin Naylor & Markus Ja¨ntti & Tor Eriksson & Eva O¨sterbacka, 2007. "Nonlinearities in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility: Consequences for Cross-Country Comparisons," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(519), pages 72-92, March.
    14. Robert J. Barro, 2013. "Education and Economic Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(2), pages 301-328, November.
    15. Lance Lochner & Enrico Moretti, 2004. "The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 155-189, March.
    16. Tim Krieger & Stefan Traub, 2009. "Wie hat sich die intragenerationale Umverteilung in der staatlichen Säule des Rentensystems verändert? Ein internationaler Vergleich auf Basis von LIS-Daten," Working Papers CIE 24, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    17. Stiglitz, J. E., 1974. "The demand for education in public and private school systems," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 349-385, November.
    18. Dan Usher, 1997. "Education as a Deterrent to Crime," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(2), pages 367-384, May.
    19. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February.
    20. Gerhard Glomm & B. Ravikumar, 1998. "Opting out of publicly provided services: A majority voting result," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 15(2), pages 187-199.
    21. Reza Baqir, 2002. "Social Sector Spending in a Panel of Countries," IMF Working Papers 2002/035, International Monetary Fund.
    22. Jie Zhang & Junsen Zhang, 2004. "How does social security affect economic growth? Evidence from cross-country data," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(3), pages 473-500, August.
    23. Soares, Jorge, 2003. "Self-interest and public funding of education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 703-727, March.
    24. Poterba, James M, 1998. "Demographic Change, Intergenerational Linkages, and Public Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 315-320, May.
    25. Inna Verbina & Abdur Chowdhury, 2004. "What determines public education expenditures in Russia?," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 12(3), pages 489-508, September.
    26. Piolatto, Amedeo, 2010. "Education and selective vouchers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 993-1004, December.
    27. Chul-In Lee & Gary Solon, 2009. "Trends in Intergenerational Income Mobility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(4), pages 766-772, November.
    28. Amedeo Piolatto, 2015. "Itemised Deductions: A Device to Reduce Tax Evasion," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 16(4), pages 422-438, November.
    29. Georges Casamatta & Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau, 2000. "The Political Economy of Social Security," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 503-522, September.
    30. Casamatta, Georges & Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre, 2000. "Political sustainability and the design of social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 341-364, March.
    31. Gradstein, Mark, 2000. "An economic rationale for public education: The value of commitment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 463-474, April.
    32. Lott, John R, Jr, 1990. "An Explanation for Public Provision of Schooling: The Importance of Indoctrination," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 199-231, April.
    33. Ladd, Helen F. & Murray, Sheila E., 2001. "Intergenerational conflict reconsidered: county demographic structure and the demand for public education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 343-357, August.
    34. Lars Lefgren & Matthew J. Lindquist & David Sims, 2012. "Rich Dad, Smart Dad: Decomposing the Intergenerational Transmission of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 268-303.
    35. Edwin G. West & Zhiqi Chen, 2000. "Selective versus Universal Vouchers: Modelling Median Voter Preferences in Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1520-1534, December.
    36. Dur, Robert & Glazer, Amihai, 2008. "Subsidizing Enjoyable Education," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 1023-1039, October.
    37. repec:bla:scandj:v:104:y:2002:i:1:p:173-88 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E., 1996. "Ends against the middle: Determining public service provision when there are private alternatives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 297-325, November.
    39. Daniele Checchi, 2003. "Inequality in Incomes and Access to Education: A Cross‐country Analysis (1960–95)," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 17(2), pages 153-201, June.
    40. Gradstein, Mark & Justman, Moshe, 2005. "The melting pot and school choice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 871-896, June.
    41. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    42. Cai, Hongbin & Treisman, Daniel, 2004. "State corroding federalism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 819-843, March.
    43. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Justman, Moshe, 2003. "The political economy of school choice: linking theory and evidence," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 277-308, September.
    44. Michele Boldrin & Ana Montes, 2009. "Assessing the efficiency of public education and pensions," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 285-309, April.
    45. Sanz, Ismael & Velazquez, Francisco J., 2007. "The role of ageing in the growth of government and social welfare spending in the OECD," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 917-931, December.
    46. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1998. "Competition between Private and Public Schools, Vouchers, and Peer-Group Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 33-62, March.
    47. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    48. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    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. Amedeo Piolatto, 2011. "Financing public education: a political economy model with altruistic agents and retirement concerns," Working Papers. Serie AD 2011-12, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    2. Yuliya Makhdievna Makhdieva, 2017. "Social/Economic Preconditions and Prospects for the Development of Education Insurance in Russia," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4A), pages 160-174.
    3. Daniel Montolio (University of Barcelona (UB) and Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB)) & Amedeo Piolatto (University of Barcelona (UB) and Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB)), 2011. "Financing public education when altruistic agents have retirement concerns," Working Papers in Economics 268, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    4. Muinah Fadhilah & Andriyansah, 2017. "Strategic Implementation of Environmentally Friendly Innovation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Indonesia," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4B), pages 134-148.

    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. Daniel Montolio & Amedeo Piolatto, 2011. "Financing public education when altruistic agents have retirement concerns," Working Papers 2011/30, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    2. Daniel Montolio (University of Barcelona (UB) and Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB)) & Amedeo Piolatto (University of Barcelona (UB) and Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB)), 2011. "Financing public education when altruistic agents have retirement concerns," Working Papers in Economics 268, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    3. Daniel Montolio & Amedeo Piolatto & Luca Salvadori, 2022. "Financing public education when agents have retirement concerns," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(4), pages 1559-1580, October.
    4. Soares, Jorge, 2003. "Self-interest and public funding of education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 703-727, March.
    5. Piolatto, Amedeo, 2010. "Education and selective vouchers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 993-1004, December.
    6. Nikos Benos, 2005. "Education Systems, Growth and Welfare," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 5-2005, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    7. Yeşilırmak, Muharrem, 2016. "A quantitative analysis of Turkish Private Education Reform," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 76-88.
    8. Cohen-Zada, Danny & Justman, Moshe, 2005. "The religious factor in private education," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 391-418, May.
    9. Tugrul Gurgur, 2016. "Voice, exit and local capture in public provision of private goods," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 397-424, November.
    10. Estevan, Fernanda, 2013. "The impact of conditional cash transfers on public education expenditures: A political economy approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 268-284.
    11. Casamatta, G. & Batté, L., 2016. "The Political Economy of Population Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 381-444, Elsevier.
    12. Andrzej Kwiatkowski, 2010. "A Foundation System and a State System - Private-School Implications on Welfare and Education Expenditure," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 241, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    13. Akyol, Metin, 2016. "Do educational vouchers reduce inequality and inefficiency in education?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 149-167.
    14. Tetsuo Ono, 2015. "Public education and social security: a political economy approach," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-25, February.
    15. Michael Kaganovich & Volker Meier, 2012. "Social Security Systems, Human Capital, and Growth in a Small Open Economy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 14(4), pages 573-600, August.
    16. Dur, Robert & Glazer, Amihai, 2008. "Subsidizing Enjoyable Education," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 1023-1039, October.
    17. Bearse, Peter & Cardak, Buly A. & Glomm, Gerhard & Ravikumar, B., 2013. "Why do education vouchers fail at the ballot box?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 26-37.
    18. Francisco Martínez-Mora, 2009. "Population ageing, inequality and the political economy of public education," Discussion Papers in Economics 09/3, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    19. David De La Croix & Matthias Doepke, 2009. "To Segregate or to Integrate: Education Politics and Democracy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 597-628.
    20. Mark Gradstein & Moshe Justman, 1996. "The political economy of mixed public and private schooling: A dynamic analysis," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(3), pages 297-310, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; Voting; Altruism; Retirement; OLG;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    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:ivi:wpasad:2011-12. 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: Departamento de Edición (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ievages.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.