What Do Teachers Do? Teacher Quality Vis-a-vis Teacher Quantity in a Model of Public Education and Growth

This paper analyses the contribution of teachers in a public education system and its implication for growth. We focus exclusively on two teacher-specific inputs (teacher quality and teacher quantity), and two student-specific inputs (ability and effort). We argue that all these factors enter separately in the education technology and therefore have differential impact of the process of human capital formation. In a public educa- tion system where teachers remunerations are paid by the government and financed by taxation, for any given amount of government revenue, there exists a trade-o¤ between teacher quality and teacher quantity. At the same time, the imposed tax rate has an impact on the export choice of an agent. Thus human capital formation and growth in the model depends on a complex interaction between teacher quality, teacher quantity, student ability and student effort. In this context we discuss the optimal education policy as well the optimal taxation policy of the government.