Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/303269 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2024-06
Publisher: 
Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics, Ramat-Gan
Abstract: 
This paper highlights a new driver of inequality, that may become increasingly prominent over the years: the inequality between skilled workers graduating from elite universities and those from standard institutions. This paper emphasizes that heterogeneity in higher education is a key factor in understanding both inequality and technological leadership. We introduce a new framework for analyzing economic growth, inequality, and leadership in technology, diverging from traditional innovation models by incorporating the concept of heterogeneity in higher education. The paper shows that a disparity between elite and standard universities not only contributes to inequality but also fosters technological leadership. The disparity between universities is referred to as the "duality gap", and it measures the distinctions between elite and non-elite universities in quality, budgets as well as tightness of students' recruitment. In the empirical part of the paper, we check the relationships developed in the theoretical model. To do so, we develop an index of the duality gap both in quality and tightness of recruitment for 17 OECD countries. The data indeed show a positive correlation between the indices of duality gap, leadership in technology, and inequality among OECD countries.
Subjects: 
ability
heterogeneity
productivity
duality gap
higher education
quality of education
wage premium
international leadership
tightness of students' recruitment
JEL: 
I26
J24
O14
O4
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.