Why do education vouchers fail at the ballot box?

Abstract

We compare a uniform voucher regime against the status quo mix of public and private education, focusing on the distribtuion of welfare gains and losses across households by income. We argue that the topping-up option available under uniform vouchers is not su¢ ciently valuable for the poorer households, so the voucher regime is defeated at the polls. Our result depends critically on the opting-out feature in the current system.vouchers, political economy, opting out, education finance