This paper compares the organisation of the university sector under private provision with the structure which would be chosen by a welfare maximising government. It studies a general equilibrium model where universities carry out research and teach students. To attend university, and earn...

This paper proposes an explanation for the universal human desire for increasing consumption. It holds that it was moulded in evolutionary times by a mechanism known to biologists as sexual selection, whereby a certain trait - observable consumption - is used by members of one sex to signal...

This paper suggests that human capital externalities are important in determining whether goods and services should be privately or publicly provided. We study situations where that the cost incurred by an individual provider for providing quality is affected by the human capital of her...

This paper investigates whether individual decisions lead to equality of opportunity in education, defined in the specific sense of irrelevance of parental income for university attendance. We show that, even if households can borrow in the capital market, the laissez-faire equilibrium exhibits...

This paper examines the effects of a competitive fringe on a regulated firm. Using Hart's (1983) model, we show that competition weakens the managerial incentives for cost reduction: when there is correlation between the cost levels of the firms in the industry, costs are higher in the regulated...

This paper studies the optimal regulatory policy in a market where entry may occur. The regulator regulates the incumbent, but not the entrant in the event of entry. We show that the effect of entry on prices and incentives for cost reduction depends on the extent of the regulator's commitment:...

The effects of minimum wage legislation are analysed under the assumption that firms are able to alter the working conditions of their employees, and that workers have different preferences about the characteristics of their job. The main findings tally with Card and Krueger’s (1995) puzzling...

This paper studies government funding for scientific research. Funds must be distributed among different research institutions and allocated between basic and applied research. Informational constraints prevent less productive institutions to be given any government funding. In order to...

In many decentralised markets, the traders who benefit most from an exchange do not employ intermediaries even though they could easily afford them. At the same time, employing intermediaries is not worthwhile for traders who benefit little from trade. Together, these decisions amount to...

This paper is based on the idea that the effort exerted by children, parents and schools affects the outcome of the education process. We test this idea using the National Child Development Study. Our theoretical model suggests that the effort exerted by the three groups of agents is...