TY  - JOUR
AU  - Epple,Dennis
AU  - Romano,Richard
TI  - Educational Vouchers and Cream Skimming
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9354
PY  - 2002
Y2  - November 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9354
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9354.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Dennis N. Epple
Tepper School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University
Posner Hall, Room 257B
Pittsburgh, PA  15213
Tel: 412/268-1536
Fax: 412/268-7357
E-Mail: epple@cmu.edu

Richard Romano
University of Florida
E-Mail: richard.romano@cba.ufl.edu
AB  - Epple and Romano (1998) show equilibrium provision of education by public and private schools has the latter skim off the wealthiest and most-able students, and flat-rate vouchers lead to further cream skimming.  Here we study voucher design that would inject private-school competition and increase technical efficiencies without cream skimming.  Conditioning vouchers on student ability without restriction on participating schools' policies fails to effect significantly cream skimming.  However, by adding conditions like tuition constraints such as vouchers can reap the benefits of school competition without increased stratification.  This can be accomplished while allowing voluntary participation in the voucher system and without tax increases.
ER  -