期刊名称：CORE Discussion Papers / Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (UCL), Louvain
出版年度：2009
卷号：1
出版社：Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (UCL), Louvain
摘要：This paper examines the degree of elitism of public education under two different
social objectives. It illustrates a potential conflict between welfare and social
mobility. In the absence of private supplementary education, utilitarian welfare
increases with the degree of elitism of the public education system. On the other
hand, elitism decreases the steady state proportion of heterogenous dynasties (those
comprised of a skilled parent and an unskilled child, or vice versa) which is our
measure of social mobility. Consequently, social mobility is maximized under the
least elitist public education system. We then open up the possibility for skilled
parents to invest in private supplementary education for their child. We show that
when private education is available, the degree of elitism that maximizes social
mobility increases, while the welfare-maximizing degree of elitism decreases,
provided that the inequality in productivity between the two types of agents is large
enough. We provide a numerical example where the ranking between the welfareand
mobility-maximizing degree of elitism is reversed when private education is
allowed ¡ª i.e., where the public education system that maximizes social mobility
is more elitist than the one that maximizes welfare. Finally, we show that utilitarian
welfare is always (weakly) higher when private supplementary education is
available. However, to maximize social mobility it may be preferable to ban private
supplements.
