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Hoover Institution
11/19/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 11/19/2024 06:35
Environmental Incentives Vs. Environmental Mandates: Lessons For Educational Policy
A key insight from economics is that incentives matter. Policies for clean air, biodiversity, and marine conservation with the proper incentives help foster environmental improvements at reasonable cost, whereas regulatory mandates can create perverse incentives and effects. Similarly for public education, policies that incentivize administrators and teachers to act as owners of local schools hold the most promise. These include reforms that enable public school choice.
Key Takeaways
- We need to evaluate policies "in terms of the incentives they create rather than the hopes that inspired them" (Thomas Sowell). Policy mandates create incentives to comply but not necessarily to work toward the broader goals of improved environmental health at lower cost.
- Lessons from environmental policy apply to public education, where regulatory mandates can create perverse incentives and fail to reward educators for innovating.
- Market-based policies create a decentralized incentive system to reward entrepreneurs who discover news ways to enhance environmental health. The same applies to schools: Incorporating market incentives, such as public school choice, into regulatory structures tends to create better results when compared to command-and-control mandates.
Environmental Incentives vs. Environmental Mandates: Lessons for Educational Policy by Hoover Institution
About The Author
Terry L. Anderson is the John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Much of his career has been focused on developing the ideas outlined in his book Free-Market Environmentalism, one of forty-three he has written. Anderson has also written for popular publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to Fly Fisherman.
Dominic Parker is the Ilene and Morton Harris Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin. His research aims to understand the effects, intended and unintended, of policies directed toward the environment and natural resources. Parker codirects the Hoover Project on Markets vs. Mandates, which analyzes incentives for improving
About Hoover Education
Hoover fellows have been and remain at the forefront of education reform research, including school choice and accountability. The Hoover fellowship conducts extensive research in education policy. Specific issues of focus include expanding school choice, boosting American K-12 student achievement, ensuring school accountability, and increasing teacher effectiveness. Hoover's education experts also engage the larger community of state and local policymakers, parents, and other stakeholders to develop solutions that are relevant, meaningful, and actionable.
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