Research over the past several years has led to development of models characterizing equilibrium in a system of local jurisdictions. An important insight from these models is that plausible single-crossing assumptions about preferences generate strong predictions about the equilibrium...

The main purpose of this paper is to estimate an equilibrium model of private and public school competition that can generate realistic pricing patterns for private universities in the U.S. We show that the parameters of the model are identified and can be estimated using a semi-parametric...

For decades, colleges and universities have struggled to increase participation of minority and disadvantaged students. Urban school districts confront a parallel challenge; minority and disadvantaged students are underrepresented in selective programs that use merit-based admission. In their...

We develop a general equilibrium model of the market for undergraduate higher education that captures the coexistence of public and private colleges, the large degree of quality differentiation among them, and the tuition and admission policies that emerge from their competition for students....

This paper examines whether gifted programs can help urban districts retain students. Gifted programs often IQ thresholds for admission, which creates strong incentives to manipulate the IQ score of students to increase access to the program. In the presence of local manipulation, the standard...

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,...