IEB Report

Public Policies

Education Policy: Quality and Equality of Opportunity

IEB Report 4/2023: Education Policy: Quality and Equality of Opportunity

Market economies inevitably come with economic inequality. However, economic inequality today depends not only on the current generation, but on pre-existing economic inequality inherited from earlier ones. Inequality persists across generations, and this is a challenge for society for several reasons. First, because of fairness: what family we are born into is a lottery; our starting conditions, which condition our life outcomes, are thus beyond our control. Second, because of efficiency: adverse conditions early on can prevent individuals from contributing to society according to their potential and from attaining high levels of well-being. Hence, a crucial question is how to reward the merits of the current generation, which results in greater societal welfare, without allowing them to condition the development of subsequent ones.