This paper develops a model in which colleges seek to maximize the quality of the educational experience provided to their students. We deduce predictions about the hierarchy of schools that emerges in equilibrium, the allocation of students by income and ability among schools, and about the...

Two significant challenges hamper the analyses of the collective choice of educational vouchers. One is the multi-dimensional choice set arising from the interdependence of the voucher, public education spending, and taxation. Second, even absent a voucher, preferences over public spending are...

cycle.

We study the intergenerational conflict over the provision of public education. This conflict arises because older households without children have weaker incentives to support the provision of high quality educational services in a community than younger households with school-age children. We...

The analysis of educational vouchers has evolved from market-based analogies to models that incorporate distinctive features of the educational environment. These distinctive features include peer effects, scope for private school pricing and admissions based on student characteristics, the...

We present an equilibrium model of the market for higher education. Our model simultaneously predicts student selection into institutions of higher education, financial aid, educational expenditures, and educational outcomes. We show that the model gives rise to a strict hierarchy of colleges...

We examine the practice of affirmative action and consequences of its proscription on the admission and tuition policies of institutions of higher education in a general equilibrium framework. Colleges are differentiated ex ante by endowments and compete for students that differ by race,...

Epple and Romano (1998) show equilibrium provision of education by public and private schools has the latter skim off the wealthiest and most-able students, and universal vouchers lead to further cream skimming. Here we study voucher design that injects private-school competition and increases...