This Paper studies the optimal education policy in the presence of different groups of households, with groups differing in the distribution of the ability to benefit from education. The main result is that the high ability individuals from groups with relatively few high ability individuals...

We study in this paper whether the price charged to a competitor for the use of an essential input produced in conditions of natural monopoly should reflect only considerations of relative efficiency between the various potential suppliers. In a model that captures the technological conditions...

The paper studies the optimal education policy of a budget-constrained utilitarian government. Households differ in their income and in the intellectual ability of their children; income is observed by the government, but ability is private information. Households can choose to use private...

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...

The paper studies the regulatory design in a industry where the regulated downstream provider of services to final consumers purchases the necessary inputs from an upstream supplier. The model is closely inspired by the UK regulatory mechanism for the railway network. Its philosophy is one of...

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:...