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Educational Policy: Egalitarian or Elitist?

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  • H. I. Grossman
  • M. Kim
Abstract
This paper offers an explanation for observed differences across countries in educational policies and in resulting interpersonal distributions of human capital. We analyse a general equilibrium model in which, as a result of the apportionment of natural ability, nurturing, and publicly financed education, some people can be well endowed with human capital, whereas other people are poorly endowed with human capital. We assume that people can choose to be either producers or predators. Because an increase in a person s human capital makes predation a less attractive choice for that person, it is possible that by using some of their human capital to educate the poorly endowed people the well endowed people can increase their own consumption. More interestingly, our theory predicts that, if producers are able to enforce a collective choice that takes advantage of the deterrent effect of allocating resources to guarding against predators, then the well endowed people prefer a relatively egalitarian educational policy that increases the human capital of all of the poorly endowed people. Such an educational policy either decreases the cost of deterring predation or makes deterrence possible. In contrast, if producers or small subsets of producers individually choose the amount of their resources to allocate to guarding, taking the ratio of predators to producers as given, then the well endowed people prefer an elitist educational policy that, if it has a redistributional component, decreases the number of poorly endowed people, thereby decreasing the number of predators, without increasing the human capital of the remaining poorly endowed people.These implications seem to be consistent with the facts about differences across countries in educational policy.

Suggested Citation

  • H. I. Grossman & M. Kim, 1999. "Educational Policy: Egalitarian or Elitist?," Working Papers 365, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:365
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    1. Leite, Duarte N. & Afonso, Óscar & Silva, Sandra T., 2020. "The Two Revolutions, Landed Elites, And Education During The Industrial Revolution," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(6), pages 1478-1511, September.
    2. Amihai Glazer & Mark Gradstein, 2001. "Appropriation, Human Capital, and Mandatory Schooling," CESifo Working Paper Series 538, CESifo.
    3. Mejia, Daniel & Posada, Carlos-Esteban, 2007. "Populist policies in the transition to democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 932-953, December.
    4. López Cruz, Iván G., 2019. "Policing, schooling and human capital accumulation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 572-597.
    5. Boschini, Anne D., 2006. "The political economy of industrialisation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 887-907, December.
    6. Helmuth Cremer & Philippe Donder & Pierre Pestieau, 2010. "Education and social mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(4), pages 357-377, August.
    7. Thaize Challier, M.-Christine, 2010. "Socio-political conflict, social distance, and rent extraction in historical perspective," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 51-67, March.
    8. Nils-Petter Lagerlöf & Thomas Tangerås, 2008. "From rent seeking to human capital: a model where resource shocks cause transitions from stagnation to growth," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 41(3), pages 760-780, August.
    9. Bertocchi, Graziella & Spagat, Michael, 2004. "The evolution of modern educational systems: Technical vs. general education, distributional conflict, and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 559-582, April.
    10. Fujii, Dmitri, 2009. "Who Wants To Be a Genius?," Panorama Económico, Escuela Superior de Economía, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, vol. 0(09), pages 7-54, segundo s.
    11. Hao Jin & Hewei Shen, 2020. "Foreign Asset Accumulation among Emerging Market Economies: a Case for Coordination," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 54-73, January.
    12. Rohner, D., 2007. "From Rags to Rifles: The Economics of Deprivation, Conflict and Welfare State," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0771, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    13. Joanna Alexopoulos & Tiago V. Cavalcanti, 2010. "Cheap home goods and persistent inequality," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 45(3), pages 417-451, December.
    14. Gonzalez, M. & Wen, W., 2007. "The Supply of Social Insurance," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0772, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    15. Dominic Rohner, 2010. "From rags to rifles: deprivation, conflict and the welfare state," IEW - Working Papers 463, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    16. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2006. "Das Human-Kapital: A Theory of the Demise of the Class Structure," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(1), pages 85-117.
    17. Grossman, Herschel I., 2005. "Inventors and pirates: creative activity and intellectual property rights," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 269-285, June.
    18. Vogel, Edgar, 2011. "Human Capital and the Demographic Transition: Why Schooling Became Optimal," MEA discussion paper series 11247, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    19. Hai-Anh H. Dang & Paul W. Glewwe, 2018. "Well Begun, but Aiming Higher: A Review of Vietnam’s Education Trends in the past 20 Years and Emerging Challenges," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(7), pages 1171-1195, July.
    20. Vincenzo Prete & Claudio Zoli, 2019. "The political economy of educational policies and inequality of opportunity," Working Papers 2019:14, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    21. Ivan G. Lopez Cruz, 2015. "Policing, Schooling and Human Capital Accumulation," CAEPR Working Papers 2015-024, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    22. Fali Huang, 2012. "Why Did Universities Precede Primary Schools? A Political Economy Model Of Educational Change," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(2), pages 418-434, April.

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