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Recent U.S. fiscal policy has created deficits and accumulated debt at an unprecedented rate. In contrast, during the same period a number of other economically advanced countries have pursued policies [...]

Economic downturns expose unsustainable fiscal practices. Widespread fiscal crises create opportunities to compare policy options that address especially adverse circumstances, especially pro-growth fiscal constraints that can stabilize state budgets over [...]

On April 22, 1998, the Children's Educational Opportunity Foundation announced the availability of CEO Horizon Scholarships to residents of the Edgewood Independent School District (EISD) in San Antonio, Texas. The [...]

Numerous empirical models connect individual student test scores or average test scores to theoretically plausible policy and socioeconomic variables. Although the models were created to test for the effect of [...]

Choice and Competition in American Education Edited by Paul Peterson Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Pp. vii, 274. $21.95 paperback. Paul Peterson's Choice and Competition in American Education, a [...]

Even in relatively backward societies, extensive division of labor and specialization of function is required to make effective use of resources. --Milton Friedman (1962: 12) In most of the economy, [...]

The present U.S. education system is shaped by a political process in which constituents collectively determine how to produce education. Political campaigns, lobbying, and voting establish schooling options, how to [...]

This special issue of the Cato Journal explores the nature of a competitive education industry (CEI) by examining the key ingredients of and minimal requirements for a true education market. [...]

In 1998, a unique voucher program began in the Edgewood District of San Antonio, Texas. Unlike the other privately funded programs, the Children's Education Opportunity (CEO) Foundation will pay the [...]

The problem of reservoir construction and water allocation is addressed by using an optimal timing model

By Terry Moe Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001. Pp. 350. $29.95 cloth, $22.95 paper. In a timely work, Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public, Terry Moe considers a number of [...]

One of society's most important, and difficult, tasks is to change institutional arrangements when an existing one is no longer appropriate. It is especially difficult when the status quo has worked well for a long time, and is deeply entrenched legally, economically, and socially. Free capture is the best 'allocation' (implicit) scheme as long as pumping plus desired springflow (PPDS) is below recharge. If PPDS overtakes recharge, free capture is no longer acceptable. A new institutional arrangement recognizing the scarcity of the common pool resource should be implemented. Scholars have devoted much effort to the design of alternative allocation schemes for scarce common pool resources. Because of inattention to transition issues, institutional change becomes more costly, and it is delayed, sometimes for a long time. With some examples from the struggle to allocate the water of the Edwards Aquifer of South Central Texas, this article explores the economic and political issues, and suggests ways to address the major implementation problems and still end up with an efficient allocation mechanism.

Sensitivity analysis (SA) is often absent, and when present, it is under-utilized. SA can do more than illustrate the implications of uncertainty. SA can make a Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) much more informative, can discourage abuse, and can make inadvertent bias more transparent. SA makes it harder for public officials to ignore BCAs that get in the way of special interest politics. Those features are especially important for environmental policymaking. SA could help change the environmentalist attitude about BCA that has produced outright prohibitions of economic analyses such as can be found in the Water Pollution Control Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act. SA is a non-confrontational way to handle controversy about key assumptions, calculation methods, and projected data. SA can make public officials more accountable, and SA makes their decision making criteria more transparent. SA lengthens the shelf-life of a BCA, and within a draft BCA, SA can help allocate research resources and narrow the range of relevant alternatives. A case study of a proposed reservoir illustrates many of the benefits of using SA more extensively., I. INTRODUCTION Nearly everyone generally agrees that decision making is a comparison of benefits and costs. Beyond the abstract, there is much controversy, especially about giving benefit-cost analysis (BCA) a [...]

A model of optimal harvest path for resource stock recovery and efficiency is presented. The model takes into account the transition to an efficient allocation method of environmental management and in doing so points out the shortcomings of contemporary environmental policy. The transition towards an optimal harvest path method of allocation is the single most neglected aspect of any environmental policy, and is addressed.

In the United States today, most high school graduates are not ready for the challenges of the modern world or higher education. Their subpar skills pose a major threat to [...]

Employers can exploit individuals with high moving costs when local labor markets are not competitive. Along with nurses and university faculty, teachers are sometimes in such a disadvantageous situation. Teachers' price elasticity of supply may be quite low in many regions, and their geographic mobility may be low when they are their household's second wage earner. Their occupational mobility is often low because of the scarcity of alternate employers within commuting distance. Nearly 96 percent of Texas' teachers work in tax-financed school districts, and many regions have only one district. An econometric model developed from school district data from 48 South Texas and 48 North Texas counties supports the hypothesis that teachers are paid less in less competitive labor markets. In Texas, teachers' salaries are not determined by collective bargaining between district officials and teacher unions. That relatively unique feature of Texas makes it especially well-suited to the task of disentangling monopsony effects from other labor market forces. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)