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 present a dynamic two-region model with overlapping generations. There are two types of public expenditure, education and infrastructure funding, and governments decide optimally on budget size (tax rate) and its allocation across the two outlays. Productivity of government infrastructure...

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...

The affordability of public higher education and, by extension, public higher education funding, is an important concern to prospective students and their parents as well as to policymakers. Our study examines the allocation of constant dollar per-student state appropriations across four-year or...

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...