The persistently increasing scale and complexity of government, of
quasi- public organizations, and of private organizations pose many
problems in the economics of collective choice. Moreover, education as a
quasi-public good has drawn ever more heavily on public budgets. Yet
economic research into collective behavior with respect to education has
been sparse (with the partial exception of recent work on teacher
unions). In view of these trends, it was decided that the third
conference under the Ford-sponsored UK. jUS. Pro- gramme in the
Economics of Education should make the high-risk effort of encouraging
and bringing together studies relating to collective choice in
education, with some emphasis on studies in educational finance. The
con- ference exploited opportunities for an exchange of ideas between
economists in the United Kingdom and in the United States; there were
special gains that could come from such an interchange. British and
American economists do share a common inheritance that goes back to
Benthamite utilitarianism and a common training in neo-classical
economic theory even when one or both of these is challenged (which
happens, of course, on both sides of the Atlantic). They share also a
culture of political democracy despite important dissimilar- ities in
governmental structures and institutions. These commonalities and
contrasts facilitate comparative testing of analyses developed in either
setting.
