Sunday 19 June 2011

Public vs Private in Universities and Health Systems

Howard Hotson in the LRB argues that the success of world-class private US universities (Harvard etc.) isn't evidence that market tactics would improve UK universities. Although Harvard and the other Ivies do exceptionally well, the US university system as a whole does worse on average than the UK, is far more expensive, and maintains huge inequalities.

A parallel point can be made about markets in healthcare: the US system does exceptionally well at the top end of provision, but does no better than the NHS on average, costs a lot more, and maintains huge inequalities (see references below).

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Some places to start on markets in healthcare, and especially the NHS:

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