Voting for Burden Sharing Rules in Public Goods Games

We experimentally investigate whether groups of heterogeneous agents can reach an agreement on how to share the costs of providing a public good. Thereby, we explore the performance of different burden sharing rules being implemented either endogenously or exogenously. In case of an endogenously implemented burden sharing rule, subjects vote for different burden sharing schemes either by unanimity or majority vote. Despite the fact that preferences for the allocation schemes differ among agents, most groups agree upon a common scheme, and consequently avoid an uncoordinated action. Our results reveal both the opportunities and risks of burden sharing negotiations. We find average efficiency levels to increase in case an agreement is reached. If groups however fail to agree upon a common rule, cooperation collapses and efficiency levels decrease compared to a voluntary contribution mechanism being exogenously imposed. Most importantly, agents who face a voting decision on average receive higher payoffs than agents in an exogenously implemented voluntary contribution mechanism and do not earn less than participants in any externally determined burden sharing rule.     

公共产品提供的逻辑

从市场失效推导出来的公共产品理论不能有效地区分公共与私人产品,也不能解释公共提供的事实。本文试图从另一个角度讨论什么是决定产品公共提供的根本原因,并以外部性—效用相互依存性—公共提供这样的顺序来推导公共产品提供的逻辑。     

Public Versus Private Provision of Public Goods

It is well known that public goods are underprovided in a static setting with voluntary contributions. Public provision—in a median voter framework with proportional taxation—generally exceeds private provision. This paper compares private and public provision of public goods in a dynamic setting. In a dynamic setting, voluntary donations can result in efficient provision. Also, majority‐rule solutions exist even when taxes are not proportional to income. At low discount factors, public provision tends to exceed private provision. As patience increases, however, private provision may exceed public provision. This occurs because many outcomes with a low level of public good provision—and potentially large targeted transfer payments to particular individuals—become sustainable under public provision. Under private provision, however, large targeted transfers are unsustainable. To finance the public good, private provision tends to result in benefit taxation, and public provision tends to result in progressive taxation.     

公共物品的特许经营

公共物品性质使公共物品的提供和管理天然具有垄断性，公平和效率难于兼顾。委托代理制在解决公平和效率问题上仍然有缺陷。竞争性特许经营是解决公共物品提供的优化方式。     

The Asymptotic Voluntary Provision of the Pure Public Goods

This paper analyzes the voluntary provision of the pure public good in a sequence of finite economies. The boundedness of this provision is established under very weak conditions. The Cournot–Nash provision of the public good is bounded. In contrast, the Lindahl provision is unbounded but the proportion of private good devoted to its production may be infinitesimal. Several examples are provided to relate this paper to the literature.     

城市公共物品配置研究的创新成果--评《城市公共物品的市场化配置研究》

孙钰博士的“九五”社科规划研究成果——《城市公共物品的市场化配置研究》，从剖析公共物品配置的乘数效应、结构效应和外部效应人手，提出了城市公共物品市场化配置的总体思路，阐明了公共物品配置的规律性，建立了一整套崭新的理论分析体系，为我国特定体制下公共物品市场化配置的决策依据和政策取向提供了理论支持。     

公共产品理论与国有资产管理的绩效评价

公共产品理论为国有资产管理的绩效评价提供了最基本的衡量标准。依据公共产品理论,从静态的观点来看,有关国有资产管理绩效的基本结论是非常明确的,那就是只有当国有资产管理活动处于公共品或准公共品领域时,对它的评价才有可能是积极的。本文还把国有资产分为公共领域中的国有资产和竞争领域中的国有资产两大部分来更进一步地探讨公共产品理论对于它们各自绩效评价的影响。     

市场化进程与公共财政的范围

公共财政是与市场经济要求相适应的一项制度，二者在实践中呈动态演进的关系。本文考察了成熟市场经济国家发展过程中公共财政范围的变动，以及不同国家之间公共财政范围的差异性；转轨国家体制转换过程中财政公共化取向的进展与作用；并对中国转轨过程中经济市场化与财政公共化的演进作了分析。本文的研究对全面认识公共财政的范围及其性质有一定的参考价值。     

Financing Public Goods by Means of Lotteries

When viewed as taxes, lotteries are routinely criticized as being both inequitable and inefficient. But is this an entirely fair comparison? Frequently lotteries are used in lieu of voluntary contributions by private charities and governments when taxes are not feasible. When heterogeneous individuals with quasi-linear preferences participate in lotteries whose proceeds will be used to fund a public good, we find that, relative to voluntary contributions, wagers in the unique lottery equilibrium (a) increase the provision of the public good, (b) are welfare improving, and (c) provide levels of the public good close to first-best as the lottery prize increases.     

Profit Maximizing in Auctions of Public Goods

A profit-maximizing auctioneer can provide a public good to a group of agents. Each group member has a private value for the good being provided to the group. We investigate an auction mechanism where the auctioneer provides the good to the group only if the sum of their bids exceeds a reserve price declared previously by the auctioneer. For the two-bidder case with private values drawn from a uniform distribution we characterize the continuously differentiable symmetric equilibrium bidding functions for the agents, and we find the optimal reserve price for the auctioneer when such functions are used by the bidders. We also examine another interesting family of equilibrium bidding functions for this case, with a discrete number of possible bids, and show the relation (in the limit) to the differentiable bidding functions.     

公共物品与政府的作用

经济自由主义与国家干预主义都是基于对市场与政府的估价直接导出政府的职能范围,从理想的市场或政府出发来确定市场与政府的有效边界,是自由主义和干预主义一个共同的局限,政府是源于社会成员的共同需要而产生的一种提供公共物品的制度安排,由于公共性是一个连续区间及公共物品的扩张性,政府活动的合法范围是难以明晰的且会不断扩张,我国应通过政府改革,完善公共物品的提供方式和机制,合理扩张政府的活动范围。     

公共物品与政府的作用

本文分析了经济自由主义与干预主义共通的逻辑缺陷和公共物品的性质,认为政府是源于社会成员的共同需要而产生的一种提供公共物品的制度安排,由于公共性是一个连续区间及公共品的扩张性,政府活动的合法范围是难以明晰的且会不断扩张,我国应通过政府改革,完善公共物品的提供方式和机制,合理扩张政府的活动范围。     

公共服务均等化论略

政府为社会提供均等化的公共产品与服务是现代市场经济的必然要求。长期以来,我们实行的是城市偏向型公共产品供给制度,造成农村公共产品供给短缺、供给成本分担不合理、公共产品收益分享不公平、供给决策机制不规范等问题,影响了农村经济社会的发展,导致城乡经济社会发展进一步失衡。因此,必须根据公共财政的要求,实行城乡统筹的公共产品供给制度,以促进公共服务均等化目标的实现。     

An Experimental Investigation of Excludable Public Goods

This paper extends the research on incentive compatible institutions for the provision of public goods by imposing a minimum contribution that must be met in order for an individual to enjoy the benefits of the public good. Excluding individuals who do not contribute at least the minimum transforms the linear n-player pure public goods game to an n-player coordination game with multiple, Pareto-ranked Nash equilibria. The experimental results show that exclusion increases contributions to the public good in most cases. However, an increase in contributions may not be sufficient to increase social welfare because there is a welfare cost to excluding individuals when the good is non-rival. Furthermore, exclusion can decrease both contributions and welfare in environments in which individuals fail to coordinate their contributions. The results are sensitive to the minimum contribution requirement and to the relative returns from the public and private alternatives.     

农村公共品供给的财政模式:比较财政体制的分析

传统的农村财政具有城市偏向、财力与事权不匹配、激励与约束机制的扭曲和提供职能主体的低效率的特性,导致农村公共品有效供给不足与结构失衡。落实科学发展观就要建立具有公共性、民主性、可持续性与均等性的农村可持续公共财政体制,实现农村公共产品长效提供,构建服务型政府。     

Voluntary Provision of Public Goods and Technology

This paper highlights issues in the theory of voluntary provision of public goods, building on the investigation by Peacock in connection with the contributions by Coase and Buchanan. Our goal is twofold. We first draw attention to the early literature investigating the provision of public goods and to the successive theoretical analysis. We then focus on the impact of technology on supply and demand. Examples of different types of public goods are provided, with special attention to the cultural sector, to investigate whether and how technology affects the efficiency and the effectiveness of the related public goods provision. The implementation and exploitation of technological advancements are investigated in view of the role of different actors (public, private) at different levels of government.     

论公共产品的市场提供

一般而言，满足消费者需求的消费品划分为两类，一类是用货币收入等价交换的消费品，即私人产品；一类是不以货币交换的消费品，即公共产品。私人产品只能由私人提供，公共产品只能由政府提供，这一分析结论所包含的政策含义往往导致公共产品供给决策绝对化和“一刀切”的倾向，把许多行业和商品纳入公共产品范畴由政府垄断性供给，由此导致资源配置效率和使用效率较低，因此。中国应加大公共产品提供的市场化改革步伐。     

Interpersonal Interaction and Economic Theory: The Case of Public Goods

Interpersonal interaction in public goods contexts is very different in character to its depiction in economic theory, despite the fact that the standard model is based on a small number of apparently plausible assumptions. Approaches to the problem are reviewed both from within and outside economics. It is argued that quick fixes such as a taste for giving do not provide a way forward. An improved understanding of why people contribute to such goods seems to require a different picture of the relationships between individuals than obtains in standard microeconomic theory, where they are usually depicted as asocial. No single economic model at present is consistent with all the relevant field and laboratory data. It is argued that there are defensible ideas from outside the discipline which ought to be explored, relying on different conceptions of rationality and/or more radically social agents. Three such suggestions are considered, one concerning the expressive/communicative aspect of behaviour, a second the possibility of a part-whole relationship between interacting agents and the third a version of conformism.     

舞动的诗歌——从空间排列看诗意的释放

＂浓缩的都是精华的＂这句话是为诗歌量身定做的。诗歌,无论是东方的还是西方的,古代的还是现代的,都以其凝练、深邃、富含哲理性而为人称颂。诗歌带给人的是视觉和听觉的双重冲击。听其音,感其韵,声声入耳;观其形,赏其态,字字入画。诗中有画,画中有诗。艺术都是相通的。诗歌意义的表达是多方面的,似乎逐字逐句地写并不能尽兴,也不能尽意,诗人偏离常态把诗的含义释放在空间之中,让读者在动用思维的同时享受了一场视觉的盛宴。诗意的空间释放一方面使诗富于美感,过目难忘,另一方面强化、突出了诗的内涵。     

城市基础设施建设:公共物品投资主体的异化

城市基础设施建设属公共物品范畴,其投资的主体应是各级政府.但地方政府为了最大限度加快城市基础设施建设,普遍以公司法人名义投资和借款,投资主体异化产生不良的经济后果,其原因和政策值得关注.