Budget private schools

India would do well to remember that for merit goods (education, health) there is only a case for govt financing but not for their production

In an important book, Surjit Bhalla (The New Wealth of Nations) has estimated the human capital stock through education in the world, and shows it is greater than financial wealth and more equally distributed. Thus, in the US the total stock of education wealth is $81 trillion PPP (purchasing power parity), with the share of the top one per cent at 10.4 per cent, and the Gini coefficient of education wealth at 51.6; for China the respective figures are $56.8 trillion, 11.9 per cent and 63.4, and for India $6.9 trillion, 19.2 and 63.3. As Bhalla argues, education is the