Financing public education when altruistic agents have retirement concerns

Human capital and, therefore, education have an impact on the societys future welfare. In this paper we study the connection between the voters support to public education and the retirement concerns. We show that voters anticipate the positive effect of education on future pensions. The support for a publicly financed education system increases, the more redistributive the pension system is, and this is true also amongst citizens preferring a private school. We also show that the ends against the middle equilibrium can occur even when the voters preferred tax rate is decreasing in income.