In this study, we suggest a framework for estimating the cost associated with a shift from the traditional method of financing and administering public schools in the US to an educational voucher system. The framework includes the accurate specification of the particular voucher plan, the system to be replaced, the setting where the plan will be applied, assumptions about the behaviour of schools and families under the plan, and the method for estimating costs. We then apply those parts of the framework that can be identified generically to compute illustrative ‘ballpark’ estimates in five cost areas: accommondating additional students, record keeping, student transportation, information to parents and dispute adjudication. Our estimates suggest that the public cost of a voucher plan in a representative US context could raise public educational costs by 25% or more. The costs of an overall governmental system of finance and structures that would support a voucher plan should no longer be ignored, as vouch...

Cost of an Educational Voucher System

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Selected Papers in School Finance, 1997-99.

free book of your choice* such as the 25th Anniversary Edition of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, by Founding Editor Robert Higgs. This quarterly journal, guided by co-editors Christopher J. Coyne, and Michael C. Munger, and Robert M. Whaples offers leading-edge insights on today’s most critical issues in economics, healthcare, education, law, history, political science, philosophy, and sociology.

A Free Market in Kidneys: Efficient and Equitable

A critique of Dwight Lee's idea that excessive government can possibly be defended.

All Government is Excessive: A Rejoinder to ‘In Defense of Excessive Government’ by Dwight Lee

In February 2011 the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) exhausted its free pool of IPv4 addresses, and the regional registries (RIRs) have started to run out of IPv4 addresses as well. As RIRs have started rationing allocations, IPv4 transfer markets have emerged as a new mechanism to acquire IPv4 addresses. Barring a few high-profile exceptions, IPv4 transfers have largely flown under the radar. In this work, we use the lists of transfers published by three RIRs to characterise the transfer market - the types of players involved, the sizes and characteristics of transferred address blocks, and the visibility of transferred address blocks in the routing table before and after the transfer. Next, we take first steps toward detecting address transfers using BGP data from the Routeviews and RIPE repositories from 2004-2013. We identify reasons why legitimate changes in prefix origin could be mistakenly inferred to be transfers, and implement a series of 10 filters that remove 86% of candidate transfers. Our results indicate that BGP-based detection of transfers is prone to false positives due to significant noise in BGP data, while some transfers remain undetectable as they involve non-BGP speakers. We describe some additional data sources and analysis techniques that may help reveal an opaque market for IPv4 address block transfers.

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Theodore R. Sizer

Papers

The Case for a Free Market.