In this article, the authors investigate competitive firm behaviors in a two-firm environment assuming linear cost and demand functions. By introducing conjectural variations, they capture the different market structures as specific configurations of a more general model. Conjectural variations are based on the assumption that each firm believes…

Paul Ryan has brought together the writings of the most prominent British research into vocational preparation in Britain in comparison to the other advanced economies, primarily within the EEC. The book, originally published in 1991, documents various aspects of inadequacy in British practice at the time, concentrating upon intermediate skills,…

In any field of knowledge, professional learning can be seen as a complex system: it involves the interaction of several components and these components change over time. Social needs, labor market, body of knowledge, faculty members, body of students and course curricula have been pointed out as some of these components that, when interacting,…

I study the efficacy of test-based meritocracy in college admissions by evaluating the impact of a grade-based "top percent'' policy implemented by the University of California. Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) provided large admission advantages to the top four percent of 2001-2011 graduates from each California high school. I…

The objective of this study was to develop an economic approach to the forecasting of allied health manpower in markets in the State of California. The health manpower categories considered included: (1) Medical technology, (2) occupational therapy, (3) dietetic and nutritional services, (4) physical therapy, (5) health administration, (6)…

This monograph estimates both disequilibrium and equilibrium models of the U.S. labor market and compares the results and their implications for policy. Because a great deal of work in the U.S. labor market has followed the equilibrium paradigm, this essay devotes a disproportionate amount of time to discussing the problems that arise in…

The author describes a classroom game demonstrating the process of adjustment to long-run equilibrium in a market consisting of price-taking firms. This game unites and extends key insights from several simpler games in a framework more consistent with the standard textbook model of a competitive industry. Because firms have increasing marginal…

This paper compares partial and general equilibrium effects of alternative financial aid policies intended to promote college participation. We build an overlapping generations life-cycle, heterogeneous-agent, incomplete-markets model with education, labor supply, and consumption/saving decisions. Altruistic parents make inter vivos transfers to…

We provide a simple framework that helps explore the need for contingent (teaching) jobs in academia alongside the usual tenured-professorship positions. It also explains the coexistence of these two types of jobs in research universities as an equilibrium phenomenon. Imprecisions in the academic editorial process, combined with the increasing…

This paper shows mutually consistent evidence to support female advantage in education and disadvantage in labor markets observed in the Philippines. We set up a model that shows multiple Nash equilibria to explain schooling and labor market behaviors for females and males. Our evidence from unique sibling data of schooling and work history and…

This paper examines how schools choose class size and how households sort in response to those choices. Focusing on the highly liberalized Chilean education market, we develop a model in which schools are heterogeneous in an underlying productivity parameter, class size is a component of school quality, households are heterogeneous in income and…

The Housing and Land Speculation Game provides students in college microeconomics courses with an opportunity to learn about market adjustment toward equilibrium and investment strategy. Students are divided into a land tax only group and a land and property tax group. They analyze the market situation and determine game strategy in accordance…

I develop and structurally estimate an equilibrium model of the college market. Students, who are heterogeneous in both abilities and preferences, make college application decisions, subject to uncertainty and application costs. Colleges observe only noisy measures of student ability and set up tuition and admissions policies to compete for more…

This dissertation develops and structurally estimates an equilibrium model of the Chilean school system and uses the model to assess the effect of teacher wage and accreditation policies on student achievement. In the model, potential teachers choose between teaching in a public school, teaching in a private school, working in the non-teaching…

The most prominent theories of unemployment that have emerged since 1960 are search, disequilibrium, implicit contracts, efficiency wage, and insider/outsider models. Search models assume that it takes time and effort for employers and potential employees to find each other. A "partial-partial" equilibrium approach focuses on one side of…