Rising costs of and returns to college have led to sizeable increases in the demand for student loans in many countries. In the U.S., student loan default rates have also risen for recent cohorts as labor market uncertainty and debt levels have increased. We discuss these trends as well as...

This paper examines how policies, aimed at increasing the supply of education in the economy, affect the matching between workers and firms, and the wages of various skill groups. We build an equilibrium model where workers endogenously invest in education, while firms direct their technology...

Rising costs of and returns to college have led to sizeable increases in the demand for student loans in many countries. In the USA, student loan default rates have also risen for recent cohorts as labor market uncertainty and debt levels have increased. We discuss these trends as well as recent...

We model a higher education system that admits students according to their admission signal (e.g., matriculation GPA, SAT), which is, in turn, affected by their cognitive ability and socioeconomic background. We show that subsidizing education loans increases neither human capital stock nor...

We review studies of the impact of credit constraints on the accumulation of human capital. Evidence suggests that credit constraints have recently become important for schooling and other aspects of households' behavior. We highlight the importance of early childhood investments, since their...

We apply theories of capital market failure to ana1yzeoptima1 financing of risky higher education. In the market solution,students can only finance their education through debt. There isunderinvestment in human capita1, because some students with socia1lyprofitable investments in human capita1...

In this paper we conduct a quantitative analysis of a number of stylized educational loan systems. We develop a stochastic general equilibrium model of a closed economy with a competitive firm sector and a government that levies taxes and administers educational loans. Individuals are...

We characterize optimal redistribution in a dynastic family model with human capital. We show how a government can improve the trade-off between equality and incentives by changing the amount of observable human capital. We provide an intuitive decomposition for the wedge between human-capital...

This paper explores the problem of an agent who invests in financial assets, works and/or accumulates human capital, and retires at the end of time horizon. His/her initial endowments consist of an amount of liquid assets (maybe because of inheritance) and a number of units of human...

We characterize optimal redistribution in a dynastic family model with human capital. We show how a government can improve the trade-off between equality and incentives by changing the amount of observable human capital. We provide an intuitive decomposition for the wedge between human-capital...