Did universities benefit from the pandemic? Some did receive more funding than usual. We use vector autoregressive models to forecast both enrollment and public subsidies in a jurisdiction where public funding depends mostly on enrollment. Using unemployment as an established proxy for the impact of recessions on enrollment, we show that the recent COVID pandemic increases pressure on public subsidies. Further, we use our forecasts to decompose the current subsidies between long-term subsidies, recession induced subsidies, and additional funding. We find that the subsidies given during the pandemic were higher than what a typical recession would command for 8 universities out of 18.
This paper analyzes the incentives induced by a formula to fund universities based primarily on enrolment. Using a simple game theoretical framework, we argue that inherently those formulas lower the funding per student. We argue that if the funding value differs by enrolment type, it introduces incentives to substitute enrolment where most profitable. We use these results to discuss the 2018 funding formula changes in Québec. Québec’s latest reform is an attempt to reduce substitution effects and increase graduate enrolment. We provide simulations of the reform’s redistributive effects. With the formula change, some universities have structural advantages over others. Whilst the reform, on a short-term basis, deploys a mechanism to mitigate these advantages, on a long-term basis the effect introduces a larger gap between Québec higher-education institutions.
We examine how the introduction of self-control preferences influences the tradeoff between two fundamental components of a public pension system: the contribution rate and its degree of redistribution. The pension regime affects individuals' welfare by altering how yielding to temptation (i.e., not saving, or saving less) is attractive. We show that proportional taxation increases the cost of self-control, and that this adverse effect is more acute when public pensions become more redistributive.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.