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The State, Socialisation, and Private Schooling: When Will Governments Support Alternative Producers?

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  • Lant Pritchett
  • Martina Viarengo

Abstract

Understanding the institutional features that can improve learning outcomes and reduce inequality is a top priority for international and development organisations around the world. Economists appear to have a good case for support to non-governmental alternatives as suppliers of schooling. However, unlike other policy domains, freer international trade or privatisation, economists have been remarkably unsuccessful in promoting the adoption of this idea. We develop a general positive model of why governments typically produce schooling which introduces the key notion of the lack of verifiability of socialisation and instruction of beliefs, which makes third party contracting for socialisation problematic. We use the model to explain variations around the world in levels of private schooling. We also predict the circumstances in which efforts to promote the different alternatives to government production - like charter, voucher, and scholarship - are likely to be successful.

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  • Lant Pritchett & Martina Viarengo, 2015. "The State, Socialisation, and Private Schooling: When Will Governments Support Alternative Producers?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(7), pages 784-807, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:51:y:2015:i:7:p:784-807
    DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2015.1034109
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    2. Lant Pritchett, 2014. "The Risks to Education Systems from Design Mismatch and Global Isomorphism," CID Working Papers 277, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    3. Benjamin W. Arold & Ludger Woessmann & Larissa Zierow, 2022. "Can Schools Change Religious Attitudes? Evidence from German State Reforms of Compulsory Religious Education," CESifo Working Paper Series 9504, CESifo.
    4. Tomas Cvrcek & Miroslav Zajicek, 2019. "The rise of public schooling in nineteenth-century Imperial Austria: Who gained and who paid?," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 13(3), pages 367-403, September.
    5. Pritchett, Lant, 2014. "The risks to education systems from design mismatch and global isomorphism: Concepts, with examples from India," WIDER Working Paper Series 039, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Sascha O. Becker & Markus Nagler & Ludger Woessmann, 2017. "Education and religious participation: city-level evidence from Germany’s secularization period 1890–1930," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 273-311, September.
    7. Andrews, Matt & Pritchett, Lant & Woolcock, Michael, 2017. "Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198747482, Decembrie.
    8. Arthuer Bauer et Rohen d'AIGLEPIERRE, 2017. "Explaining the Development of Private Education: the Effect of Public Expenditure on Education," Working Paper 237926bf-0d6f-4396-b47e-9, Agence française de développement.
    9. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2017. "Public–private partnerships for the provision of public goods: Theory and an application to NGOs," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 356-371.
    10. Opalo, Ken Ochieng', 2022. "What is the Point of Schooling? Education Access and Policy in Tanzania Since 1961," OSF Preprints 3kbfa, Center for Open Science.
    11. Lant Pritchett, 2014. "The Risks to Education Systems from Design Mismatch and Global Isomorphism: Concepts, with Examples from India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-039, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Ram Singh, 2018. "Public–private partnerships vs. traditional contracts for highways," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 29-63, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

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