Cohort size and schooling choice

"We develop a perfect-foresight overlapping generations model to investigate the effects of cohort size on schooling decisions and cohort-specific welfare measures.... We calibrate the partial equilibrium model using data on [U.S.] schooling investments and aggregate wages over the period 1920 through 1980, and use the parameters to assess the magnitude of lifetime cohort wealth and schooling elasticities computed with respect to the entire cohort size sequence. We find that the equilibrium response of schooling to perturbations in the cohort size sequence is small, so that the adverse effects of increases in the size of own and neighboring cohorts on cohort wealth are not significantly [mitigated] by adjustments in schooling investments within our modelling framework."