Regional income disparities have increased in many European countries recently, even as national and supra-national policy instruments were created to correct them. To explain these evolutions, we develop a two-region, two-sector model with migration and public investment in infrastructure and...

We investigate the relationship between inequality and political support for public education funding in a model of endogenous fertility and school choice. Household income heterogeneity is consistent with the skewness of empirical income distributions. Inequality can drive education spending in...

We study decentralized and optimal urbanization in a simple multi-sector model of a rural-urban economy focusing on productivity differences and internal trade frictions. We show that even in the absence of the typical externalities studied in the literature, such as agglomeration, congestion or...

We investigate the choice of quality, or academic content, in higher education in a two-sector model. Individuals are differentiated according to their cost of acquiring human capital. A higher academic quality increases productivity upon training, but is also associated with higher cost of...

The growth of for-profit colleges has been historically aided by online instruction, and budget crunches at public institutions, circumstances which have resurfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic. We set up and calibrate a general equilibrium model of competition between public and for-profit...

We investigate externalities in higher education enrollment over the course of development in a two-sector model. Each sector works with only one type of labor, skilled or unskilled, and individuals are differentiated according to their cost of acquiring human capital. Both sectors exhibit...

I develop a political economy theory of dynamic fiscal competition via public spending and debt. With internationally mobile capital, strategic policies generate two cross-border externalities that voters in each country fail to internalize: (1) an increase in public spending that bolsters...

I develop a political economy theory of dynamic fiscal competition via public spending and debt. With internationally mobile capital, strategic policies generate two cross-border externalities that voters in each country fail to internalize: (1) an increase in public spending that bolsters...

We use an OLG model to study the effects of the generous public sector pension system in Brazil. In our model there are two types of workers, one working in the private sector, the other working in the public sector. Public workers produce infrastructure or education services. We find that...

We construct a dynamic model of a small open economy to analyze the effects of large energy subsidies. The model includes domestic energy production and consumption, trade in energy at world market prices, as well as private and public sector production. The model is calibrated to Egypt and used...