This paper presents empirical evidence on the distributional impact of public higher edu- cation through analysis of a cross-sectional view of West Germany in 1997. In contrast to a widely-held hypothesis in economics, our findings do not show evidence for a regressive im- pact. The use of a...

For more than 150 years, many economists have assumed public subsidies on higher education to have a regressive distributional effect. The German debate on this issue is kept alive by many empirical studies. Most of them confirm the thesis of a \"perverse distribution of income\" (Milton...

A persistent controversy in the economics of higher education is the distributional consequences of tuition-fee subsidies. There are two points at issue. First, subsidies affect income distribution between rich and poor households, analyzed by cross-sectional studies. Second, there may also be...

We estimate small marginal costs and large markups at private colleges in the United States, and discuss implications for the design of financial aid. For identification, we exploit a tightening of credit standards in the PLUS loan program, which decreased enrollment, revenues, and expenditures...

We describe the evolution of Oregon’s one-off property tax system, which emphasizes stable growth in tax payments and inter-jurisdictional uniformity in tax rates. We contrast its outcomes in two sections of Portland, which had the best, most fairly administered property tax system in the...

We quantify the total stock of balances eligible for the 2022 federal student loan forgiveness policy and explore which groups benefit most. Roughly $441 billion in balances are eligible for forgiveness, which would leave almost 40 percent of federal borrowers with no remaining balance. The...

We quantify the total stock of balances eligible for the 2022 federal student loan forgiveness policy and explore which groups benefit most. Roughly $441 billion in balances are eligible for forgiveness, which would leave almost 40 percent of federal borrowers with no remaining balance. The...

We quantify the total stock of balances eligible for the 2022 federal student loan forgiveness policy and explore which groups benefit most. Roughly $441 billion in balances are eligible for forgiveness, which would leave almost 40 percent of federal borrowers with no remaining balance. The...

The impact of fiscal activity on human capital formation has often been analyzed with regard to the expenditure side of the budget, i.e. the subsidization of (higher) education. Recent contributions have increasingly focused on the effect of taxation on human capital accumulation. Less attention...

A persistent controversy in the economics of higher education is the distributional consequences of tuition-fee subsidies. There are two points at issue. First, subsidies affect income distribution between rich and poor households, analyzed by cross-sectional studies. Second, there may also be...