The Effect of Public Education on the Long-Run Income Distribution

We consider public education provided obligatorily and equally for all individuals. It is usually said that compulsory public education ensures an equal opportunity of education for all individuals and contributes to human capital formation. We will discuss how the introduction of public education affects human capital accumulation and income distribution among heterogeneous individuals in an overlapping generation model. Particularly, we discuss those effects on the long-run equilibrium of individual human capital, considering the threshold effects of human capital stock.