IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3994.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Human Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Raquel Fernandez
  • Richard Rogerson

Abstract

The non-existence of credit markets implies that initial income is a determinant of who actually obtains an education. We consider the outcome of a process in which income is taxed to provide subsidies for education. and taxes are chosen by majority voting. We characterize the outcome as a function of both the level and the distribution of income in the economy. In particular we derive conditions under which middle income individuals ally themselves with upper income individuals at the expense of lower income individuals, and vice versa. The analysis determines the relationship between human capital accumulation and distribution of income.

Suggested Citation

  • Raquel Fernandez & Richard Rogerson, 1992. "Human Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution," NBER Working Papers 3994, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3994
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3994.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1991. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth? Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 581, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Creedy, John & Francois, Patrick, 1990. "Financing higher education and majority voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 181-200, November.
    3. Loury, Glenn C, 1981. "Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 843-867, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Lommerud, Kjell Erik, 1989. "Educational Subsidies When Relative Income Matters," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 640-652, July.
    6. Behrman, Jere R & Pollak, Robert A & Taubman, Paul, 1989. "Family Resources, Family Size, and Access to Financing for College Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 398-419, April.
    7. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    8. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    9. Peltzman, Sam, 1973. "The Effect of Government Subsidies-in-Kind on Private Expenditures: The Case of Higher Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(1), pages 1-27, Jan.-Feb..
    10. Johnson, George E, 1984. "Subsidies for Higher Education," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(3), pages 303-318, 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. Panizza, Ugo, 2002. "Income Inequality and Economic Growth: Evidence from American Data," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 25-41, March.
    2. Ugo Panizza, 1999. "Desigualdad del ingreso y crecimiento económico: elementos de juicio de datos de USA," Research Department Publications 4179, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    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. Raquel Fernandez & Richard Rogerson, 1995. "On the Political Economy of Education Subsidies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(2), pages 249-262.
    2. Panu Poutvaara, 2006. "On the political economy of social security and public education," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 345-365, June.
    3. Anderberg, Dan, 2013. "Post-compulsory education: Participation and politics," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 134-150.
    4. Gianni De Fraja, 2004. "Education and Redistribution," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 94(3), pages 3-44, May-June.
    5. Jorge Soares, "undated". "Altruism and Self-interest in a Political Economy of Public Education," Working Papers 130, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    6. Jordi Jofre-Monseny & Martin Wimbersky, 2010. "Political economics of higher education finance," Working Papers 2010/17, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    7. De Fraja, Gianni, 1999. "Equal Opportunities in Education: Market Equilibrium and Public Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 2090, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. John Creedy, 1994. "Financing higher education: public choice and social welfare," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 87-108, August.
    9. Poutvaara, Panu, 2011. "The expansion of higher education and time-consistent taxation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 257-267, June.
    10. Rainald Borck & Martin Wimbersky, 2014. "Political economics of higher education finance," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 115-139, January.
    11. Soares, Jorge, 2003. "Self-interest and public funding of education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 703-727, March.
    12. Rainald Borck & Martin Wimbersky, 2014. "Political economics of higher education finance," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 115-139, January.
    13. Günther Rehme, 2007. "Education, Economic Growth and Measured Income Inequality," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(295), pages 493-514, August.
    14. Benabou, Roland, 2005. "Inequality, Technology and the Social Contract," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1595-1638, Elsevier.
    15. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    16. Zanola, Roberto, 2000. "Public goods versus publicly provided private goods in a two-class economy," POLIS Working Papers 12, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    17. Boldrin, Michele, 2005. "Public education and capital accumulation," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 85-109, June.
    18. Profeta, Paola & Puglisi, Riccardo & Scabrosetti, Simona, 2013. "Does democracy affect taxation and government spending? Evidence from developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 684-718.
    19. Lorenzo Burlon, 2017. "Public expenditure distribution, voting, and growth," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(4), pages 789-810, August.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:3994. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.