Revitalizing Rural Communities through Institutional Reform of Quasi-Markets

Welfare services such as healthcare, elderly care, and education are key to ensuring quality of life generally, and vital for rural communities across urbanizing countries. While these sectors are largely tax-financed, several countries have established quasi-markets to achieve competition through private entry to unleash entrepreneurship, efficiency, and service provision innovation. The reforms notwithstanding, productivity improvements are modest, and the situation seems particularly bad in some rural communities.