Economists have found that increasing the proportion of girls in primary and secondary school leads to significant improvement in students’ cognitive outcomes (Victor Lavy and Analia Schlosser. 2007. Mechanisms and impacts of gender peer effects at school, NBER Working Paper 13292). One key channel seems to be that on average boys create more trouble in class, which makes it harder for everyone to learn. In newspaper English, we’d say that “boys are a tax on every child’s education.”
a. Using the tools of this chapter, do girls in a classroom provide external costs or benefits? What about boys?
b. Just based on this study, if you are a parent of a boy, would you rather your son be in a class with mostly boys or mostly girls? What if you are the parent of a girl?
c. Who should be taxed in this situation? Can you see any problems implementing this tax?