Volume 22, Number 4 (Fall) 1987
James, Estelle and Gail Benjamin. 1987. "Educational Distribution and Income Redistribution through Education in Japan." Journal of Human Resources 22(4):469-489.
This paper investigates the variables that determine the distribution of education and the redistribution of income through public education. It also explores interactions between quantity, quality, and enrollment distributions in the public and private sectors. It presents empirical evidence from Japan, which has opted for limited government spending on secondary and university education, a high-quality, low-quantity public system and, therefore, only moderate redistribution through education. It calculates enrollment and tax shares by lifetime income distribution within cohorts, to eliminate life-cycle effects on current earnings. Finally, it compares previous findings for several state systems in the U.S.
James is a professor of economics at SUNY, Stony Brook, and Benjamin is a
consultant in Washington, D. C. The final version of this paper was completed
while James was a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. This
paper is part of a larger study of the public and private sectors in Japanese
education.
The authors wish to thank numerous people in Japan who helped
them gather material for this monograph, including Shogo Ichikawa and Hirumitsu
Muta, National Institute for Educational Research; Toru Yoshimura and Yoshinobu
Yamamoto, Saitma University; Ken Ogata, Hosei University; Takao Maruyama,
Association of Private Universities; Yasuo Kai and Tetsu Beppu, Foundation for
the Promotion of Private Schools; Akio Nakajima and Akimasa Mitsuta, Ministry of
Education; and Noboru Ukawa of Toin Gakuen (secondary school).
They appreciate the capable data analysis by R. S. Huang and
H. K. Lee, SUNY, Stony Brook, and the translations by Shigeru Kishikawa, SUNY,
Stony Brook; Chika Murakami, Sophia University; Tsuneo Shiobara, Saitama
University; and Isamu Maruyama, International House of Japan.
They gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this
and related projects from the Exxon Education Foundation, the National Endowment
for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the Program on
Nonprofit Organizations at Yale University, and the Agency for International
Development.
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X