Costs of Taxation and Benefits of Public Goods with Multiple Taxes and Goods

The fact that raising taxes can increase taxed labor supply through income effects is frequently and erroneously used to justify greater public good provision than indicated by traditional, compensated analyses. We develop a model including multiple public goods and taxes and derive measures of the marginal benefits of public goods and the Marginal Cost of Funds (MCF) using both compensated and uncompensated measures. We confirm that the desirability of tax‐financed public projects is independent of the method used. An important innovation is to show that the benefits of public goods must be adjusted by a benefit multiplier not previously seen in the literature if an uncompensated MCF is used.     

EVALUATING THE DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE*

This article evaluates the distribution of public expenditure on subsidized goods and services over income categories. It is argued that undifferentiated application of usual measures of dispersion must be rejected when judging the distribution of these expenditures, because there are hardly any subsidized goods and services for which the government aims at equal consumption. Such an application requires a normative distribution of expenditure. The normative distribution of expenditure is derived from a normative distribution of consumption and the distribution of normative charges. Central elements are needs of consumers and their financial capacity. The normative distribution of consumption is based on government intentions with respect to the goods and services under consideration.     

Needs,economic constraints,and the distribution of public home-care

When private goods are publicly provided at subsidized prices, government authorities have to determine the distribution of services on recipients. The distribution of services according to need is frequently referred to as an important policy goal. Thus governments are assumed to develop standards for evaluating the relative needs of different clients. This paper analyses the impact of needs and economic constraints on the distribution of public home-care in Norway. The empirical results show that individual needs have a significant effect on the distribution of home-care. Another finding is that local public authorities with higher disposable incomes meet client needs better. Finally the results are utilized to derive a measure of client-specific need.     

Subsidized technology and its utilization: Aids for the disabled

Subsidized research into advance technology is one means employed to attain social and ideological goals recognized as vital to a society. Increasing sensitivity to the social uses of technology has recently led to funding of R&D in aids for the disabled. An analysis of 89 such projects between 1979 and 1983 confirm the impact of subsidized public funding on such research, leading to a narrow focus on applied research in specific disability areas with the objective of creating a viable commercial prototype for a highly visible but extremely small number of severely disabled. Subsidized funding also reinforces specialization through selective support of projects by institutional setting. This specialization further focuses research into areas likely to be rewarded by further funding and through this mechanism scientific output matches needs for those whom R&D is subsidized. The impact of subsidized R&D for the disabled can therefore be said to be effective as an example of societal intervention in directing technological advances.     

A pigovian rule for the optimum provision of public goods

The integrated treatment of optimal taxation and public expenditure presented here is based on the dual relationship between the prices of private goods and the quantities of public goods. The conditions for optimum public good provision can be expressed as a modification of the Samuelson conditions with extra terms representing (a) the distortionary effect of taxes on the willingness to pay for the public good, and (b) distributional effects. The former captures Pigou's notion of the indirect damage caused by the need to finance public expenditure out of distortionary taxes, and we call this the ‘Pigou term’. In certain cases a very simple benefit-cost ratio for public projects emerges that is equivalent to measuring benefits as if they were taxed.     

Direct versus indirect pigovian taxation

This paper considers the theory of optimal taxation in the presence of externalities when it is the uses of commodities in particular consumption processes which generate externalities, rather than the consumption of certain commodities as such. If the government is constrained to using ordinary commodity taxes (for reasons of imperfect information, costly control, etc.), it is demonstrated that there is a case for having taxes or subsidies on related goods in addition to a tax on the externality-creating commodity itself. The analysis also identifies the conditions under which related goods should be subsidized or taxed.     

The evaluation of river water quality improvements by the contingent valuation method

The results of an application of the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to the estimation of the recreational benefits which would result from improvements in river water quality are described. This case study is used as a basis to discuss the wider, generic issues in the application of the CVM: in particular, the problems of defining the population who benefit; the nature of the goods; why they benefit; and the questions of validity and reliability. A series of recommendations both as to appropriate methodological procedures to be adopted in CVM studies are given and as to areas where further theoretical and methodological research is required.     

论房地产市场宏观调控的“财政拐点”

房地产市场是我国当前国民经济发展最为纠结的一个领域,公众、企业和政府三者之间长期未能找到一个合理的均衡点,由此导致整个运行机制的混乱无序。本文认为,这其中既有政府职能错位的原因,更有政府对低收入群体住房保障职能的"财政拐点"尚未到来的客观局限。因此,我国政府要真正履行对低收入群体的住房保障职能,首先要通过国民经济的进一步发展积聚更加强大的物质基础,从而争取这个财政拐点的早日到来。其次在目前的历史阶段上科学认识政府的住房保障职能,从而区分房地产市场的两种属性,进而建构房地产行业两种体系之间的良性互动关系,是政府完善住房保障职能和房地产行业可持续发展的关键举措。     

Do low-income housing subsidies increase the occupied housing stock?

A necessary condition for justifying a policy such as subsidized low-income housing, either via tenant-based rental assistance or construction of public or private projects, is that it has a real effect on market outcomes. In this paper, we examine one aspect of the real effect of subsidized housing—does it increase the housing stock? If subsidized housing raises the quantity of occupied housing per capita, either more people are finding housing or they are being housed less densely. On the other hand, if subsidized housing merely crowds-out equivalent-quality low-income housing that otherwise would have been provided by the private sector, the housing policy may have little real effect on housing consumption. Using both Census place and MSA-level data from the decennial census and from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, we ask whether housing markets with more subsidized housing also have more total housing, after accounting for housing demand. We find that government-financed units raise the total number of units in a market, although on average one government-subsidized unit adds only one-third to one-half of a unit to the total housing stock. There is less crowd-out in more populous markets, and more crowd-out in places where there is less excess demand for subsidized housing, as measured by the number of government-financed units per eligible person. Tenant-based housing programs, such as Section 8 Certificates and Vouchers, seem to be more effective than project-based programs at targeting subsidized housing units to people who otherwise would not have their own.     

ECONOMIES WITH PUBLIC PROJECTS: EFFICIENCY AND DECENTRALIZATION*

The article deals with the two fundamental theorems of welfare economics for production economies with a finite set of agents, infinitely many private goods, and a set of public projects. The problem of efficiency and decentralization is addressed under the following very general assumptions: (a) the commodity–price duality is endowed with a consistent locally convex topology; (b) the set of public projects is without any mathematical structure. Moreover, any agent is characterized by a nonordered preference relation depending on consumption goods and public projects. Approximate and exact welfare theorems are discussed throughout the article.     

Welfare effects of energy subsidy reform in developing countries

We analyze the potential welfare effect of energy subsidy reforms. The income distributions of eleven developing countries from different geographical regions are simulated using the assumption that income is lognormally distributed. We use the concept of the compensating variation to measure how much compensation is required to compensate consumers for a price increase in formerly subsidized goods. The behavior of consumers is modeled by a standard Cobb–Douglas and a quasilinear utility function. In the Cobb–Douglas case, a fixed fraction of income is spent on the subsidized good, which does not change after a price increase. With quasilinear preferences, the optimal amount of the subsidized good does not vary with income, but does change as prices change. We show theoretically and empirically that the required compensating variation can be set below the saved expenditures on subsidies, so a budget neutral reform can have a positive effect on social welfare.     

Land Use in the 21st Century: Contributing to the Global Public Good

This paper focuses on the evolution of global public goods related to the world's land resources over the course of the 21st century, their potential impacts on the world's poorest households, as well as prospects for policy interventions aimed at enhancing these outcomes. It begins with global scale projections to 2100 of land use and associated goods and services, including food, fuel, timber, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration and biodiversity. This is followed by in‐depth discussion of each of these services and the challenges of providing these public goods in sufficient quantities to advance societal welfare—especially that of the world's poorest households. The paper concludes with a discussion of policies aimed at promoting the provision of land‐based public goods and how they could be altered to be more pro‐poor. Within this context, the paper argues that access to geospatial analysis tools and information on climate, land use and tenure, poverty and environmental indicators will become increasingly valuable to both public and private decision makers.     

Decentralization of Pareto optima in economies with public projects,nonessential private goods and convex costs

Summary In the theory of economies with public goods one usually considers the case in which private goods are essential, i.e., each agent receives a fixed minimum level of utility if he consumes no private goods, irrespective of the public goods consumed. This paper develops the second welfare theorem for economies with public projects and possibly inessential private goods. As a corollary we also derive conditions under which valuation equilibria exist.hank Dolf Talman and an anonymous referee for many useful remarks and annotations of a previous draft of this paper.     

PROXIMITY AND VOTING FOR PROFESSIONAL SPORTING STADIUMS: THE PATTERN OF SUPPORT FOR THE SEAHAWK STADIUM REFERENDUM

This paper evaluates voting behavior on the Seahawk Stadium referendum in the State of Washington. For our empirical strategy, we implement both the linear probability model and a group logit model, which gives greater weight to voting areas with greater number of votes cast. We find that voting support was lowest among those living closest to the proposed stadium site, while voting support was highest among those within “easy access” of the stadium. This nonlinear distance effect differs from the typical “proximity” effect found in most professional sporting stadiums in the United States; however, it is consistent with a referendum‐voting outcome for a professional soccer stadium in Germany and public projects such as national forests. (JEL R53, H71, L83)     

农村公共产品供给与农民收入的相关性分析

当前,农民对农村公共产品的依赖性不断增强。但是,由于多种因素的制约,中国农村公共产品供给存在公共产品供给数量严重不足、供给结构失衡等问题。为此,应加大农村基础设施建设投入,明确划分各级政府供给公共产品的责任,构建农民对公共产品的需求表露机制等,创新农村公共产品供给制度,增加农村公共产品供给。     

THE IMPACT OF STADIUM ANNOUNCEMENTS ON RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY VALUES: EVIDENCE FROM A NATURAL EXPERIMENT IN DALLAS-FORT WORTH

We investigate the impact of a potential new sports venue on residential property values, focusing on the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys' search for a new host city in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We find that residential property values in the city of Dallas increased following the announcement of a possible new stadium in the city. At the same time, property values fell throughout the rest of Dallas County, which would have paid for the proposed stadium. These patterns reversed when the Dallas stadium proposal was abandoned. Subsequently, a series of announcements regarding a new publicly subsidized stadium in nearby Arlington, Texas, reduced residential property values in Arlington. In aggregate, average property values declined approximately 1.5% relative to the surrounding area before stadium construction commenced. This decline was almost equal to the anticipated household sales tax burden, suggesting that the average expected amenity effect of hosting the Cowboys in Arlington was not significantly different from zero. ( JEL L83, R53, H73)     

Public goods and the value of product quality regulations: the case of food safety

The paper examines preferences for product quality regulations. Our premise is that preferences for product quality regulations derive from preferences for both private and public goods. The model is used to explain public attitudes toward a referendum measure to eliminate pesticide residues on food. Results from a survey of consumers are consistent with the conceptual model and show that preferences for public goods influence support for the product quality regulation. The results help explain why consumption behavior is a poor predictor of political behavior, and have implications for methods that use voting and market behavior to value public goods.     

科技项目资助对论文产出绩效的作用效率测度研究

以人工智能领域论文和学者为研究对象,探讨科技项目资助对论文产出绩效的作用效率。运用负二项回归分析不同国家、领域资助种类、强度对论文引用和载文期刊水平的影响,结果发现,各项资助指标均可提升论文质量,但在不同地域和研究方向上的作用效果有所差异。运用倾向得分分层和线性回归,从发文、被引量和h指数角度测度资助对学者产出绩效提升的有效性,结果发现,资助能够显著提升学者产出力和影响力。通过Tobit回归测度资助项目数量和金额对不同年龄群体学者发文、被引量与变化率等指标的影响,结果发现,资助项目数量增加可整体提升学者产出绩效,资助金额增加更能扩大产出力和影响力的动态提升幅度。据此,提出资助改进策略和评审机制优化等相关建议。     

ON GOODS AND SERVICES

The paper is concerned with the concept, definition and measurement of a service. Although services are often dismissed as immaterial goods, they are not special kinds of goods and belong in a quite different logical category from goods. The search for appropriate units of quantity in which to measure services is not an idle metaphysical pursuit. Without quantity units there can be no prices, and most economic theory becomes irrelevant. Indeed, large parts of economic theory may be irrelevant to the analysis of services anyway, precisely because they are not goods which can be exchanged among economic units. Services are as important as goods in modern developed economies and they need to be identified and quantified properly if the measurement of economic growth and inflation is to have any meaning for the economy as a whole. The concept of a service is explained in some detail in the paper, and various ways in which services can be classified for purposes of economic analysis are elaborated. The distinction between private and public goods, or rather between private and collective services, is re-examined in the light of the general concept of a service proposed in the paper. Externalities are shown to be simply special kinds of services.     

DOES THE PROVISION OF PUBLIC GOODS CORRESPOND TO LOCAL DEMAND?

Recently China's central government has promoted public goods investment in pursuit of rural development and poverty reduction. However, the top down nature of investment planning may lead to mismatches between public goods projects and the demands of local residents. Using village‐ and household‐level survey data, this study seeks to identify the determinants of project implementation, focusing on investments in roads, drinking water, and irrigation. Contrary to some popular perception, our results suggest symmetry between farmers' reported demand and the types of projects implemented in their villages. The relative contribution of local demand to project implementation is seen to vary, however, across different types of public goods. (JEL D71, H41, H77, P35)