UCL - Economie et politiques de l'éducation

[ECON2353]

[30h] 5 credits

Teacher(s): Fabio Domingues Waltenberg(supplée Vincent Vandenberghe), Maresa Sprietsma(supplée Vincent Vandenberghe), Vincent Vandenberghe

Language: French

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

This course uses microeconomics and public economics tools to address the question of education demand, supply (produc-tion of human capital) as well as economics consequences of education both at individual and aggregate levels. The main aim of the course is to initiate students to the potentials offered by economic theory and econometrics to understand a broad set of issues determining education systems' functioning and governance in advanced economies. This course requires no particular prerequisites. It uses both microeconomics and public economics theories/concepts and applies them to education and training issues.

Main themes

1. General presentation of education economics: main topics and perspectives;
2. Demand theory (why do indivial want to educate themselves?): human capital, signalling/filtering theory;
3. The particular nature of education/human capital: consequence as regards to provision and financing (should education be left to market forces or be publicly provided/financed?);
4. Supply theory (how is public education provided?)
4.1. Cost function analysis
4.2. Production function analysis
4.3. Regulation theory applied to education systems (information, incentives, market vs. bureaucratic co-ordination, pro-duction externality...);
5. Firms and education (Becker's no-training prediction and the German apprenticeship system);
6. Emerging issues
- education and (rising) wage inequality;
- education and skill-biased technological progress.

Content and teaching methods

Topics covered range from education demand (human capital theory, signalling theory...), education financing and provi-sion, to private and social benefits of education. The course's main objective is to expose the theoretical tools developed by economists over the last 40 years to understand educational behaviour and stakes. It is also to examine and interpret styl-ised facts about education and training across advanced economies like Belgium. Students are expected to be able to esti-mate some simple econometric models using micro-data and standard econometric software (Stata, SAS, TSP...)

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

none

Essay (¼) based on econometric analysis of micro-data + end-of-term written exam (¾) during which students are requested to answer a short questionnaire covering the whole set of issues cov-ered by the course and to write an essay on a more open issue related to human capital and educa-tion

Syllabus can be downloaded from teachers' webpage

Belfield, C. (2000) Economic Principles for Education: Theory and Evidence (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham)