Three essays on the public economics of education.

Summary In this thesis I study three problems concerning the economics of education. The first one studies the formulation of education policies in an optimal taxation model. I show that education policy depends on the relationship between ability and the elasticity of wages with respect to education. The second studies the effects of government intervention in the composition and segregation of school audiences. I show that such intervention is desirable only if there are differences in the sensitivity of the production function to the labor supply of individuals with different knowledge. The third studies the relationship between educational standards and tuition in a model in which firms do not observe the productivity of the individual, but whether the individual has graduated. I show that a school that focuses on the amount of tuition will set a very inefficient policy in which all students graduate.