IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mhr/finarc/urnsici0015-2218(200511)613_327tporep_2.0.tx_2-l.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Pitfalls of Regional Education Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Jens Südekum

Abstract

We analyze whether education subsidies to students in poor areas are an effective tool of regional policy. We show that this policy can miss its objectives and actually hurt instead of help the recipient area. The reason is that geographical mobility increases with the personal skill level. Education subsidies induce individuals to invest more heavily in human capital. At the end of the education period they might have crossed some threshold level of qualification beyond which emigration to the economic center pays off. Regional policies then result in a brain drain that is harmful to those remaining in the periphery. Education subsidies are a more promising policy instrument the lower is labor mobility and the better is access to financial markets. Moreover, policymakers can avoid the potential pitfalls of this policy by focusing subsidies on low-skilled workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens Südekum, 2005. "The Pitfalls of Regional Education Policy," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 61(3), pages 327-352, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhr:finarc:urn:sici:0015-2218(200511)61:3_327:tporep_2.0.tx_2-l
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/the-pitfalls-of-regional-education-policy-101628001522105774979038
    Download Restriction: Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2003. "Regional Policy in the Global Economy: Insights from New Economic Geography," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6-7), pages 665-673.
    2. Sjef Ederveen & Henri L.F. de Groot & Richard Nahuis, 2006. "Fertile Soil for Structural Funds?A Panel Data Analysis of the Conditional Effectiveness of European Cohesion Policy," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 17-42, February.
    3. Richard Baldwin & Rikard Forslid & Philippe Martin & Gianmarco Ottaviano & Frederic Robert-Nicoud, 2005. "Economic Geography and Public Policy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 7524.
    4. De Gregorio, Jose & Kim, Se-Jik, 2000. "Credit Markets with Differences in Abilities: Education, Distribution, and Growth," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(3), pages 579-607, August.
    5. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    6. Justman, Moshe & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1997. "Implications of the mobility of skilled labor for local public funding of higher education," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 409-412, September.
    7. Sjef Ederveen & Henri L.F. de Groot & Richard Nahuis, 2006. "Fertile Soil for Structural Funds?A Panel Data Analysis of the Conditional Effectiveness of European Cohesion Policy," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 17-42, February.
    8. Vincent Dupont & Philippe Martin, 2006. "Subsidies to poor regions and inequalities: some unpleasant arithmetic," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 223-240, April.
    9. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    10. Panu Poutvaara, 2000. "Education, Mobility of Labour and Tax Competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 7(6), pages 699-719, December.
    11. Paolo Mauro & Antonio Spilimbergo, 1999. "How Do the Skilled and the Unskilled Respond to Regional Shocks?: The Case of Spain," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 46(1), pages 1-1.
    12. Panu Poutvaara, 2004. "Public Education in an Integrated Europe: Studying to Migrate and Teaching to Stay?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1369, CESifo.
    13. Karen Helene Midelfart-Knarvik & Henry G. Overman, 2002. "Delocation and European integration: is structural spending justified? [‘Specialization patterns in Europe’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 17(35), pages 321-359.
    14. Martin, Philippe & Rogers, Carol Ann, 1995. "Industrial location and public infrastructure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 335-351, November.
    15. Moretti, Enrico, 2004. "Human capital externalities in cities," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 51, pages 2243-2291, Elsevier.
    16. Nicola D. Coniglio & Francesco Prota, 2008. "Human capital accumulation and migration in a peripheral EU region: the case of Basilicata," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 87(1), pages 77-95, March.
    17. Martin, Philippe, 1999. "Public policies, regional inequalities and growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 85-105, July.
    18. Richard Baldwin & Rikard Forslid & Philippe Martin & Gianmarco Ottaviano & Frederic Robert-Nicoud, 2005. "Economic Geography and Public Policy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 7524.
    19. Stark, Oded & Helmenstein, Christian & Prskawetz, Alexia, 1997. "A brain gain with a brain drain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 227-234, August.
    20. Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P. & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2002. "Integration, agglomeration and the political economics of factor mobility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 429-456, March.
    21. Mariassunta Giannetti, 2001. "Skill Complementarities and Migration Decisions," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 15(1), pages 1-31, March.
    22. Jennifer Hunt, 2000. "Why Do People Still Live in East Germany?," NBER Working Papers 7564, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Möller, Joachim & Haas, Anette, 2002. "The agglomeration wage differential reconsidered - an investigation with German micro data 1984-1997," ERSA conference papers ersa02p327, European Regional Science Association.
    24. John Bound & Jeffrey Groen & Gabor Kezdi & Sarah Turner, 2001. "Trade in University Training: Cross-State Variation in the Production and Use of College-Educated Labor," NBER Working Papers 8555, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Johannes Bröcker & Dirk Dohse & Rüdiger Soltwedel (ed.), 2003. "Innovation Clusters and Interregional Competition," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, number 978-3-540-24760-9.
    26. Sjef Ederveen & Henri L.F. de Groot & Richard Nahuis, 2002. "Fertile Soil for Structural Funds?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-096/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    27. De Fraja, Gianni, 2001. "Education Policies: Equity, Efficiency and Voting Equilibrium," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(471), pages 104-119, May.
    28. Bound, John & Groen, Jeffrey & Kezdi, G.Gabor & Turner, Sarah, 2004. "Trade in university training: cross-state variation in the production and stock of college-educated labor," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 143-173.
    29. Ethier, Wilfred J, 1982. "National and International Returns to Scale in the Modern Theory of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 389-405, 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. Arcalean, Calin & Glomm, Gerhard & Schiopu, Ioana, 2012. "Growth effects of spatial redistribution policies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 988-1008.
    2. Chetan Ghate & Gerhard Glomm & Jialu Liu, 2012. "Sectoral infrastructure investment in an unbalanced growing economy: The Case of India," Discussion Papers 12-07, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    3. Birkenfeld, Florian, 2008. "Kleine Klassen und gute Luft: Warum sind die Grundschulen auf dem Land besser?," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-56-08, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.

    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. Ugo Fratesi, 2008. "Regional policy from a supra-regional perspective," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 42(3), pages 681-703, September.
    2. Pflüger, Michael & Südekum, Jens, 2008. "Integration, agglomeration and welfare," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 544-566, March.
    3. Fenge, Robert & von Ehrlich, Maximilian & Wrede, Matthias, 2009. "Public input competition and agglomeration," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 621-631, September.
    4. Kristian Behrens & Frédéric Robert‐Nicoud, 2009. "Krugman's Papers in Regional Science: The 100 dollar bill on the sidewalk is gone and the 2008 Nobel Prize well‐deserved," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(2), pages 467-489, June.
    5. Sudekum, Jens, 2002. "Subsidizing Education in the Economic Periphery: Another Pitfall of Regional Policies?," Discussion Paper Series 26130, Hamburg Institute of International Economics.
    6. Ulltveit-Moe, Karen Helene, 2007. "Regional policy design: An analysis of relocation, efficiency and equity," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1443-1467, August.
    7. Robert Fenge & Maximilian von Ehrlich & Matthias Wrede, 2007. "Fiscal Competition, Convergence and Agglomeration," CESifo Working Paper Series 2084, CESifo.
    8. Nicholas Sheard, 2012. "Regional policy in a multiregional setting: when the poorest are hurt by subsidies," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(2), pages 403-423, June.
    9. Fabien Candau, 2008. "Entrepreneurs' Location Choice And Public Policies: A Survey Of The New Economic Geography," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 909-952, December.
    10. Stéphane Riou, 2003. "How growth and location are sensitive to transport and telecommunication infrastructures ?," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 69(3), pages 241-265.
    11. Jens Suedekum, 2005. "Increasing returns and spatial unemployment disparities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(2), pages 159-181, June.
    12. Ottaviano, Gianmarco & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2004. "Agglomeration and economic geography," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 58, pages 2563-2608, Elsevier.
    13. Maria Florencia Granato, 2011. "REGIONAL NEW ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY (refereed paper)," ERSA conference papers ersa10p747, European Regional Science Association.
    14. repec:got:cegedp:17 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Fabien Candau, 2013. "Trade, FDI and Migration," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 441-461, September.
    16. Seidel, Tobias & von Ehrlich, Maximilian, 2014. "The persistent effects of regional policy - Evidence from the West-German Zonenrandgebiet," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100515, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Richard E. Baldwin & Toshihiro Okubo, 2006. "Heterogeneous firms, agglomeration and economic geography: spatial selection and sorting," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(3), pages 323-346, June.
    18. Francesco Di Comite & d'Artis Kancs & Patrizio Lecca, 2018. "Modeling agglomeration and dispersion in space: The role of labor migration, capital mobility and vertical linkages," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 555-577, August.
    19. Matthias Wrede, 2013. "Heterogeneous skills and homogeneous land: segmentation and agglomeration," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(5), pages 767-798, September.
    20. Gallo, Fredrik, 2010. "Resisting economic integration when industry location is uncertain," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 467-482, April.
    21. Sanguinetti, Pablo & Volpe Martincus, Christian, 2009. "Tariffs and manufacturing location in Argentina," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 155-167, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    regional policy; education subsidies; human capital; labor mobility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
    • R1 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics

    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:mhr:finarc:urn:sici:0015-2218(200511)61:3_327:tporep_2.0.tx_2-l. 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: Thomas Wolpert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/fa .

    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.