This paper considers how optimal education and tax policy depends on the risk properties of human capital. It is demonstrated that a key feature of human capital investments is whether they increase or decrease wage risk. In a benchmark model it is shown that this feature alone determines...

This paper considers how optimal education and tax policy depends on the risk properties of human capital. It is demonstrated that a key feature of human capital investments is whether they increase or decrease wage risk. In a benchmark model it is shown that this feature alone determines...

This paper develops a model of risky investment in education under disappointment aversion, modeled as loss aversion around one's endogenous expectation. The model shows that disappointment aversion reduces the optimal investment in education for lower ability people and increases it for higher...

Justification for policies to encourage investments in education, particularly for individuals at the lower end of the ability distribution, may be provided by behavioural economics. We present a prototypical model where individuals who are potentially loss averse around their expected outcome...

We study the impact of higher education financing on the academic aspirations of teenagers and of their parents. We exploit a reform which introduced a large increase in the maximum university tuition fees and a more redistributive student loan system, both of which varied across the UK's...

This paper considers intra-family financing of human capital under the assumptions that individuals are selfish and binding contracts are not feasible. Cooperation among family members is possible through a family norm (a family 'social capital') which prescribes the obligations to be met at...