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 distribution of welfare gains and losses across house-holds by income. We argue that the topping-up option available under uniform vouchers is not sufficiently 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.