Criteria for Public Expenditure on Education

Abstract

The criteria by which desirable levels of public expenditure on education could be decided are many and complex.¹ Clearly, to a large extent some of them fall within the range of decisions labelled ‘political’. But economists usually use this word in a somewhat derogatory sense to mean irrational or even anti-economic. It has always seemed to me that in issues of public policy it is especially important to try to form an argument which, while resting securely on the basis of economic reasoning, does not pretend that the ordinary day-to-day problems of running a country do not exist. Consequently those sorts of economic reasoning which rely upon the analogy of the market mechanism in public affairs have to be especially scrutinized for the implicit assumption that no political interest in the question under discussion exists at all.² I begin with the market analogy because it is the one that is most often used. While I do not think it the most practically useful, it does have an important function in drawing attention to certain issues that must be discussed.³