A Brookings Institution Press, Committee for Economic Development, and Urban Institute Press publication For decades, the use of vouchers has been widely debated. But often lost in the heat of debate is the fact that vouchers are just another tool in the government's tool chest, a restricted subsidy that falls somewhere between the extremes of cash and direct government provision of services. The instrument itself is not new—the 1944 GI Bill of Rights was a voucher, and vouchers for food, college aid, and housing have been in place for decades. Until now, however, the study of vouchers has been restricted to a few controversial applications. This volume, which grew out of a conference sponsored by the Brookings Institution, the Urban Institute, and the Committee for Economic Development, fills the gap, offering a framework for comparative analysis of specific policy issues related to vouchers. Its 16 essays address the economics, politics, and legal issues of voucher use and explore how vouchers are currently employed in the United States and abroad for education, child care, job training, housing, and health care. C. Eugene Steuerle is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and has worked under four different U.S. presidents on a variety of reform issues in such areas as social security, budget, tax, and health policy. Robert D. Reischauer, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, was director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1995. George Peterson is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute; from 1976 to 1985 he directed the Institute's Public Finance Research Center. Van Doorn Ooms, senior vice president and director of research at the Committee for Economic Development, was formerly executive director for policy and chief economist of the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives, 1989-1990, and was the Budget Committee's chief economist from 1981 to 1988.

This book explores new forms of private, mutual municipal, public-private and 'reverse' state funding of public investments, co-payments and shared contributions, vouchers, and pooled public risk-financing. It includes case studies taken from the Nordic countries, UK, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey and South Korea.

This book is the result of a program undertaken nine years ago by the Diebold Institute for Public Policy Studies, Inc., to identify and analyze potentials for private sector involvement in the delivery of public services. Since its founding in 1968, the Diebold Institute has focused on this question in the belief that private enterprise is capable of infusing public service delivery with the efficiency in resource allocation and management that is its hallmark, whether through direct involvement as a service provider or as a source of market dynamics and management techniques.

This publication sets out a framework for analysing the performance of governments in developing countries, looking at the government as a whole and at local and municipal levels, and focusing on individual sectors that form the core of essential government services, such as health, education, welfare, waste disposal, and infrastructure. It draws lessons from performance measurement systems in a range of industrial countries to identify good practice around the world in improving public sector governance, combating corruption and making services work for poor people.

The Tools of Government is the first professional guide to the principles and practices of public administration in an age when governments no longer provide many services--but arrange for others to do so. Characterized by extensive collaboration among levels of government and between government and the private sector, this new approach to solving public problems presents many new important issues. Comprehensive in scope, this new book offers a first hand look at the challenges faced by contracting out to nonprofit and profit sectors for grants, insurance, regulation, vouchers, cooperative arrangements, tax data, grants-in-aid, and others. The chapters examine over 20 different tools in use today and summarizes their basic features, patterns of usage, key tasks, political and substantive rational, and the major management challenges that each one poses. International in coverage and application, this book is ideal for students, teachers, and scholars in public administration, management, public policy, economics, political science, and nonprofit management; managers and heads of state, local, and federal agencies; executives in foundations and other nonprofit organizations; and academic, government, and research libraries.