The Consumer Demand for Education

This paper presents new evidence on the estimation of the demand for education. Unlike previous studies, this study uses the translog-LES indirect utility function to analyze the demand for education within a multicommodity framework for annual U.S. consumption expenditures for the period 1958-82. Various restrictive existing specifications of the demand for education are tested and rejected. Income and price elasticities of education are estimated that are larger than those of existing studies. Taste change has moved toward the consumption of education, and the consumer has suffered from a loss in welfare due to increases in prices over time.