The Regulation of Private Schools Serving Low-Income Families in Andhra Pradesh, India

Pauline Dixon () and James Tooley ()

The Review of Austrian Economics, 2005, vol. 18, issue 1, 29-54

Abstract: This paper sets out some findings of a research project carried out in private unaided schools in low-income areas of Hyderabad, India. The part of the research project documented here was designed to examine the question: ‘Is the regulatory regime conducive to entrepreneurial action and market discovery’ with particular reference to the low-income schools in Hyderabad. This paper is narrowly focused, setting out the results of pattern matching empirical data with the Austrian economic concepts of entrepreneurship, rivalry, and market discovery. The research discovered that two regulatory regimes exist, one that is set out ‘on paper’ in the Education Acts and associated rules, and another that operates ‘in practice’. That is, there is a combination of regulations ‘on paper’ and regulations existing in an ‘extra-legal’ sector. Generally it was found that the regulations ‘in practice’ are consistent with market principles. Conversely the regulations set out ‘on paper’ are not conducive to entrepreneurial innovation and market discovery. Recommendations for potential policy initiatives include the possibility of legitimising the ‘extra-legal’ sector by introducing self-regulation possibly via self-evaluation systems for the private unaided schools. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Keywords: competition; entrepreneurship; profit; regulation; private schools; low-income families; developing countries; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11138-005-5592-4 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:revaec:v:18:y:2005:i:1:p:29-54

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11138/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11138-005-5592-4

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Austrian Economics is currently edited by Peter Boettke and Christopher Coyne

More articles in The Review of Austrian Economics from Springer, Society for the Development of Austrian Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().