Updating the analysis of the determinants of the demand for education.

Economic analysis of the determinants of the demand for education has been developed first in terms of human capital theory, and thereafter in terms of competing theories : radicalism, filter, signal, job competition. Developed in the seventies, these approaches remain dominant today, even though, since the eighties, recent economic analysis make it possible to find new interpretations. Particularly, unemployment theories and overlapping generations models of intra-family tranfers show that the demand for education may be not only simply liberated but also additionaly created by public education and employment policies. These state interventions are justified when market and family are defaulting, labor productivity insufficient, employment and demand for education sub-optimal. In this framework, state interventions stimulate the demand for education by direct supply of education, subsidizing households, and public employment of long-term unemployed.. Keywords : Demand for education – Educational investment – Supply of education – Inter-generations transfers – Intra-family transfers.