Education and Borrowing Constraints: Tests vs Prices

This paper examines the properties of exams and markets as alternative allocation devices under borrowing constraints. Exmas dominate markets in terms of matching efficiency. Whether aggregate consumption is greater under exams than under markets depends on the power of the exam technology; for a sufficiently powerful test, exams dominate markets in terms of aggregate consumption as well. The positive effects of income taxation are analyzed and the optimal allocation scheme when welath is observable is derived.