Journal of Public Economics
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Опубликовано на портале: 14-11-2003
Marc Fleurbaey, Robert J. Gary-Bobo, Denis Maguain
Journal of Public Economics.
2002.
Vol. 84.
No. 1.
P. 113-150.
Abstract
Autors consider a model of education planning in an economy in which agents differ in
their costs of acquiring education. The agents' cost parameter, called `talent',
is not observed. The principal is endowed with a fixed sum of money, with which two
types of transfer can be made: in cash and in kind. The principal can finance transfers
in kind, called `help', by means of schooling expenditures, which reduce the agent's
education cost. The principal seeks to maximize a social welfare function which is
a CES index of utility levels. Autors study the optimal allocation of individual education
effort, schooling expenditures (help), and cash, under self-selection and budget
constraints. Assuming first that the set of types is finite, and that help and effort
are sufficiently substitutable, we find that individual education investment levels
are an increasing function, and help is a decreasing function of talent. Utility
levels cannot be equalized because of self-selection constraints. More aversion for
inequality unequivocally leads to more inequality of educational achievements, and
to more assistance through redistribution. This remains true in the limit, under
strictly egalitarian preferences of the principal. The same qualitative properties
hold in the general case of a continuum of types. Bunching at the lower end of the
talent scale is a feature of the solution for sufficiently high degrees of inequality
aversion.
