This paper exploits a policy-induced natural experiment that occurred in South Australia in the mid-1980s to generate a 'causal' estimate of the effect of schooling on the literacy and numeracy performance of school students in their middle years of secondary school (in Year 9 for most...

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...

British secondary schools moved from a system of extensive and early selection and tracking in secondary schools to one with comprehensive schools during the 1960s and 70s. Before the reform, students would take an exam at age eleven, which determined whether they would attend an academically...

We consider a finite number of firms, which compete imperfectly for heterogeneous workers. Firms produce a homogeneous good, sold on a competitive market, and face demand-induced price fluctuations. It is then shown that unemployment may arise in equilibrium because of both uncertainty of...

The aim of this paper is to study whether schooling choices are affected by social interactions. Such social interactions may be important because children enjoy spending time with other children or parents learn from other parents about the ability of their children. Identification is based on...

This proposal involves the establishment of ‘welfare accounts’ for every person in a country. There are four accounts: a retirement account (covering pensions), an unemployment account (covering unemployment support), a human capital account (covering education and training), and a health...

This paper uses the sequencing of privatisation to infer the objective pursued by the Polish government in the privatisation of its large manufacturing firms in the second half of the 1990's. We construct a model of mixed oligopoly, and use it to evaluate the privatisation process; our analysis...

We demonstrate that there is a nexus between land transfers and human capital formation. A sequence of land redistributions enables the beneficiaries to educate their children and thus to escape from poverty and to overcome child labour. We find that open access to land markets should be...