Globalization is a popular term that, to economists, describes the effects of diminished costs to trade around the world. The technological revolution of the past two decades lowered barriers to trade in the financial sector as well as in the goods and services sectors. As a result, we routinely consume products from China, India, or Latin America, and these and other countries likewise consume goods and services from us. Many argue that a by-product of the technological revolution is the loss of country and regional cultural identity. We find McDonald's and Starbucks in Seattle, Washington, Beijing, China, and small towns around the globe. Others argue that this simply implies wider choice of goods and of cultural identities.As economists think about globalization, we attribute these changes to efficiency in the marketplace. The technological advances have enabled countries to export those goods and services for which they have a comparative advantage, and the gains from trade have resulted in increased economic growth worldwide. While we see the benefits from the enhanced flow of goods and services across markets, economists have paid less attention to the nonmarket aspects of globalization. The increased flow of information and people across national boundaries implies increased competition across all sectors of the economy. Similar to the market for goods and services, the political institutions that survive the competitive race in the long run presumably will be those that enhance efficiency. This is not to intimate that political systems will replicate the efficiency of the marketplace but to suggest that competitive forces tend to lead to more efficient structures and, ultimately, toward more efficient outcomes. As these public administrative institutions become more competitive, politics should play a diminished role and economic efficiency should play an even greater role in future structures.If globalization ultimately leads to more efficient institutions, the value of examining current international differences in institutional structures is immense. Through understanding past and current differences, we gain insight into our future. Today I want to examine one specific institution within this context--private provision of elementary and secondary schooling. I want to examine private schooling by exploring the institutions that govern the provision of private schooling, the role of politics and economics in the evolution of these institutions, and, finally, the efficiency implications of the various institutional arrangements. At each step in this examination, I shall be assessing the role that globalization has played, and is expected to play, in the delivery of schooling around the world.1. Private Provision around the WorldEconomists have studied education since the days of Adam Smith. We have estimated the demand for schooling, provided normative assessments of the role of the state in education, examined the effects of public expenditures for education on housing markets, estimated the returns to schooling, and estimated the relationship between public schooling and economic development. But most of all, economists have estimated education production functions that relate public sector inputs such as per pupil expenditures, pupil-teacher ratios, or teacher salaries to educational achievement. And, as last year's Southern Economic Association Distinguished Guest Lecturer so eloquently demonstrated, economists, policymakers, and the public have been sorely perplexed by the lack of positive association between these inputs and the achievement of public school students (Hoxby 2004).The private side of schooling has received increasing attention from economists as data have become more available (James 1993). Private schooling occupies a significantly smaller sector of the economy in the United States than does public schooling. According to UNESCO (2000) data, approximately 12% of students enrolled in primary schools in this country attend private schools. …