Essays on the governance and financing of higher education institutions

The goal of this thesis is to assess how the changes in universities’ autonomy, accountability and competition can influence the functioning and performance of higher education institutions and impact their stakeholders. It does so by applying industrial organization models to highlight some of the forces at stake between the different actors in higher education markets (higher education institutions, students, professors, administrators and governments). An introductory chapter provides the wider economic policy context with a specific focus on Europe and the United States. Key related theoretical works from the literature are also discussed. The thesis is then composed of three theoretical stand-alone papers related with this topic. The first chapter examines which market conditions favor the emergence of for-profit institutions in the higher education sector. The second chapter analyzes how a governance reform can impact the internal functioning and the performance of a higher education institution. The third chapter discusses how certain characteristics of higher education can impact a university’s choice of tuition fees (when universities are free to set their own fees).
() -- FUSL, 2013