State politics,tuition, and the dynamics of a political budget cycle

This paper attempts to improve the understanding of political budget cycles by first identifying a previously undocumented cycle in tuition and required fees at public four-year institutions of higher education in the United States. I find that tuition and fees are 1.5 % lower during gubernatorial election years than in non-election years. No similar cycle is found in private tuition and fees. Using a newly constructed dataset, I then explore the variation in electoral competition in gubernatorial and state legislative elections within states over time to uncover the underlying electoral incentives creating the cycle. The results suggest that the tuition cycle is not designed to increase the reelection prospects of governors as standard theories would predict. I find that tuition decreases during gubernatorial election years as the reelection prospects of the incumbent governor increases. Instead, the evidence suggests that popular governors use lower tuition as political pork to expand party power in the state by capturing swing districts in concurrent state legislative elections. I find that the magnitude of the cycle increases with the level of competition in state house elections and that the effect is concentrated among those districts held by the opposition party, particularly if those opposition districts are populated with voters likely to be responsive to tuition as a policy lever. These results reveal important dynamics about party competition within states in the United States and suggest that the electoral incentives driving political budget cycles can be complex.     

基于层次分析法的高等学校学费模型研究

本文分析了影响高等学校学费的众多因素,确定出生均拨款、培养费用、家庭收入和社会资助这四个主要的影响因素,并且基于层次分析法建立了影响因素之间的层次模型。通过构造出成对比较判断矩阵,对矩阵结果进行归一化处理、层次单排序及一致性检验,得到高校学费影响因素在影响程度上的排序,GDP、地区、学校类型和专业对学费的影响较大,而人员经费、设施折旧费和社会资助对学费影响较小。本文结合搜集整理的高校学费标准的相关数据,建立学费的预测模型,对学费标准进行了定量分析。结果表明：2010年学费有所增加,平均学费基本稳于4500元左右,且艺术专业学费最高。     

Taxes,Tuition Fees,and Education for Pleasure

The fact that education provides both a productive and a consumptive (nonproductive) return has important and, in some cases, dramatic implications for optimal taxes and tuition fees. Using a simple model, we show that when the consumption share in education is endogenous and tuition fees are unconstrained, the optimal tax/fee system involves regressive income taxes and high tuition fees. A progressive labor income tax system may, on the other hand, be a second‐best response to politically constrained, low tuition fees. Finally, the existence of individuals with different abilities will also move the optimal income tax system toward progressivity.     

Tuition fees and social segregation: lessons from a natural experiment at the University of Paris 9-Dauphine

Using a natural experiment, a sharp rise in tuition fees in some of the programmes at the University of Paris 9-Dauphine, we study the impact of tuition fees on students’ pathways, and outcomes. We apply an optimal matching method to the national database of students’ registrations (SISE) to define a typology of pathways. We then use a nonordered multinomial logit model to evaluate the impact of the rise in tuition fees on the types of pathways selected by the university. We show that there is a significant impact on these pathways. The increase in tuition fees reduces geographic and social mobility, thereby accentuating the phenomena of social segregation. Furthermore, contrary to what some of the studies assert, the rise does not appear to encourage greater effort: we find no impact on the graduation success rate.     

The determination of public tuition fees in a mixed education system: A majority voting model

We study the determination of public tuition fees through majority voting in a vertical differentiation model where agents' returns on educational investment differ and public and private universities coexist and compete in tuition fees. The private university offers higher educational quality than its competitor, incurring higher unit cost per trained student. The tuition fee for the state university is fixed by majority voting while that for the private follows from profit maximization. Then agents choose to train at the public university or the private one or to remain uneducated. The tax per head adjusts in order to balance the state budget. Because there is a private alternative, preferences for education are not single‐peaked and no single‐crossing condition holds. An equilibrium is shown to exist, which is one of three types: high tuition fee (the “ends” are a majority), low tuition fee (the “middle” is a majority), or mixed (votes tie). The cost structure determines which equilibrium obtains. The equilibrium tuition is either greater (majority at the ends) or smaller (majority at the middle) than the optimal one.     

贫困大学生的心理健康与培养教育研究

自从1995年中国高校招生并轨制度开始实行,高校收费持续攀高,除极少数专业外,全部是自费上学。由于中国区域经济发展不平衡等原因,部分农村或城市的贫困家庭经济压力沉重,没有能力负担大学生的高额学费,这就形成了中国高校特有的贫困大学生群体。在高等教育迅速发展的过程中,贫困生现象日益突出,并呈逐年迅速上升趋势。由于中国大学生心理健康问题受到了高校的普遍重视,通过对贫困大学生的心理健康状况进行调查分析,对他们的心理现状、心理问题的成因进行调查研究,为解决高校贫困生心理问题提出基本对策。     

高校收费标准与我国居民的支付能力

我国当前高等学校的收费问题,是一个颇受关注的社会问题。就收费标准而言,超过了绝大多数居民的负担能力。为此,提出以下改革建议:科学计算高校运营成本,以人均可支配收入为依据,重新审定并适当降低收费标准,采用略有差别的收费标准,城镇居民不多收,农村学生要少收。     

Fiscal Competition and Higher Education Spending in Germany

The present paper studies the determinants of higher education spending by the German federal states with a focus on the interplay between higher education spending of neighboring states. More specifically, the paper asks whether the German federal states free‐ride on one another's higher educational spending or whether they employ higher education spending to attract university graduates. We identify a positive relationship between the states' higher education spending and conclude that the states compete for graduates rather than free‐ride. We also consider the effect of the recent introduction of tuition fees in some, but not all German states. We do not find evidence that tuition fees led to crowding out of public higher education funds.     

Is partial privatization of universities a solution for higher education?

This paper accounts simply for the link between higher education and the productive economy through educated workers. We study a model of vertical successive monopolies where students/workers acquire qualification from a University then “sell” skilled labor to a monopoly which itself sells its final product to consumers, linking through quality the education sector to the labor and output markets. We determine the optimal share the State should keep in the University to compensate for the market imperfections, while taking into account the inefficiencies of public management. The resulting partially privatized University fixes the tuition fees so as to maximize a weighted sum of profits and social welfare. We derive the optimal public share under the hypothesis that the State may subsidize the tuition fees/University losses, then under the constraint that the University should make a nonnegative profit. We prove that in both cases, the State should keep a substantial share (higher under the first hypothesis) in the University, unless public management is too inefficient in which case the University's management should be completely private.     

Rethinking Hecs: Its Definition and Fiscal Role in Compensating for Non-deductibility of Tuition Fees

This paper develops a two period model of the higher education decision to determine the required return from higher education. It uses the model to calculate the proportion of full tuition costs which should be charged 'up front' under the Australian Higher Education Scheme (HECS), in order to compensate for the fact that such fees are not deductible against income for tax purposes. Because full tuition costs represent less than 11 per cent of the total costs of higher education, the ideal HECS ratio is relatively high, in the region of 0.7. The low relative importance of tuition costs means that fee subsidy schemes cannot possibly compensate for other distortions such as income tax progression which persist over the working life of graduates.     

Tuition fees and equality of university enrolment

Abstract .  The relationship between tuition fee changes and the university enrolment of youth by parental income group in Canada is investigated. Comparisons between youth from Canadian provinces that increased tuition fees sharply in the 1990s and youth from provinces that instituted fee freezes were integral to identifying the relationship. Tuition fee increases coincided with reductions in the university enrolment of low-income youth, but with significantly smaller changes in the university enrolment of other youth. The relationships between government funding of universities and cohort size and university enrolments are also analyzed.     

Education Policies: Equity, Efficiency and Voting Equilibrium

This paper investigates the effects of two specific forms of intervention in the market for education: an ability test for admission to university and a subsidy to tuition fees financed through general taxation. Both these measures enhance equality of opportunity, but their equity and efficiency effects are ambiguous. This ambiguity is reflected in the political economy equilibrium which would emerge as the result of voting on the level of the ability test and of the subsidy.     

Search equilibrium and social and private returns to education

Social and private returns to education are computed using the structural estimates of an extended Burdett-Mortensen search equilibrium model. The extension includes different skill groups linked via a production function with variable degree of homogeneity, allowing thereby for a unimodal earnings density with a decreasing right tail. We find that the decreasing unemployment risk for higher skill groups and the absence of tuition fees in Germany increase private returns and lead to a too large share of high skilled individuals in the workforce, which is suboptimal from the social point of view.     

University fees and the demand for STEM degrees

The 2006 increase in university tuition in the UK was followed by a 3–4% reduction in the proportion of students choosing STEM degrees, due either to a change in the composition of students, or to similar students selecting away from STEM subjects. This article tests the latter hypothesis, estimating the effect of the fees for comparable students using propensity score matching on a rich set of covariates. Results suggest that the change was entirely driven by compositional changes.     

Scholarships or Student Loans? Subsidizing Higher Education in the Presence of Moral Hazard

An income-contingent loan scheme can at best replicate the allocation brought about by a scholarship scheme financed by a graduate tax, and only on condition that there is nothing to stop the policy maker from using tuition fees as if they were taxes. If that is not possible, even the best loan scheme will exclude some well-qualified school leaver from university. Even if individual study effort is observable, but more so if it is not, it is not socially desirable that all students should specialize in the subjects that promise the highest graduate earnings.     

Legal effort and optimal legal expenses insurance

In this paper we derive optimal legal expenses insurance for litigants and payment method for lawyers when neither the litigant's quantity choice nor the lawyer's legal effort is contractible. Three points are highlighted as our conclusions. First, to design an optimal insurance-payment system, demand-side cost-sharing is necessary. Second, supply-side cost-sharing is necessary only if the quantity and effort are substitutes and the payment contract involves hourly fees. Third, the optimal insurance-payment system could be achieved under conditional fees and sliding fees. Reputation incentives and side-contracts are also discussed in this paper.     

Public and Private Education in an Integrated Europe: Studying to Migrate and Teaching to Stay?

This paper investigates public and private choices between internationally applicable and country‐specific education when graduates are mobile. Human capital depends on innate skills and study effort with either type of education. It is shown that national governments provide too few students with internationally applicable education, and too many with country‐specific education. This effect is mitigated, but not entirely eliminated, by the introduction of a graduate tax, according to which graduates are required to pay part of their taxes to the country where they received their education, regardless of residence. However, private educational choices are socially optimal with suitably differentiated tuition fees.     

REVENUE-NEUTRAL INCENTIVES FOR EFFICIENCY AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

Recently, interest has grown in using monetary incentives as an efficient way to promote energy efficiency and environmental quality. This paper describes issues raised in designing revenue-neutral incentive policies to achieve these goals. Such policies involve charging fees in proportion to undesirable characteristics and giving rebates in proportion to desirable characteristics. The fees pay for the rebates and for any administrative costs of the program.
This paper analyzes the conceptual issues raised in designing such incentive policies to correct for externalities and to promote the efficiency of buildings and automobiles. The paper examines the nature and importance of externalities, presents the rationale for revenue-neutral incentive policies, and describes six revenue-neutral incentive programs for achieving these goals. In addition, it analyzes the criteria that one should use in determining the size of fees and rebates, in light of the large uncertainties. Finally, the paper addresses key implementation issues.     

The impact of labour unions on external auditor selection and audit scope: evidence from the Korean market

We examine whether labour unions influence external auditor selection and audit scope. As a major user group of financial information, labour unions likely demand financial information of high quality and thus high-quality audits. As a union’s request for wage increases is likely strong when a firm is performing well, management facing wage negotiations with the labour union has incentives to manipulate earnings downward and may therefore prefer auditors who allow more discretion. Using union data unique to Korea during 2005–2008, we find that firms with a stronger labour union tend to choose higher-quality auditors (i.e. Big N or industry specialist auditors). We also find that unionization is negatively (positively) associated with positive (negative) abnormal audit fees and audit hours, and the effects are more pronounced when the union is stronger and more active. Given that departures from normal audit fees and audit hours in either direction arguably impair audit quality, this finding is consistent with our prediction of unions’ demand for high-quality audits. Overall, our findings suggest that labour unions play an important role in determining audit quality.     

The Design of Optimal Education Policies

This paper studies the education policy chosen by a utilitarian government. In the model, households differ in their income and in their children&'s ability; income is observed by the government, but ability is private information. Households can use private education, but cannot borrow to finance it. The government can finance education with income tax, but at the cost of blunting the individuals' incentive to exert labour market effort. The optimal education policy we derive is elitist: it increases the spread between the educational achievement of the bright and the less bright individuals, compared to private provision. It is also such that the education received by less bright individuals depends positively on their parental income. Finally, the optimal education policy is input regressive, in the sense of Arrow (1971, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 38, 175–208): households with higher income and brighter children contribute less in tuition fees towards the cost of the education system than households with lower income and less bright children.