Some Insights on Religion from Public Goods Economics

This paper provides a theoretical discussion on what analytical insight is gained by viewing religion as both a pure and impure public good. It suggests that organized religion converts a public good into an excludable club good and can be viewed as providing both an access regime for this club good as well as acting as an intermediary. Interestingly, this drives a wedge between the ardent and moderate adherents of a religion. It also presents an analysis of trust in social relationships when organized religion works to provide a credible signal of trustworthiness.     

Postwar Reconstruction: Some Insights from Public Choice and Institutional Economics

A successful reconstruction is characterized by a widespread coordination problem, combined with potential pockets of conflict. We analyze the array of relationships that take place in the reconstruction process – political, economic and social – by considering under what circumstances they are situations of conflict or coordination. Historical attempts at reconstruction provide further understanding of how to achieve success.JEL Classification: N40, O1, P11, Z13.     

实验经济学的兴起与公共产品理论的发展

实验经济学是经济学的一个新的分支,其研究内容主要包括个人决策、市场交易、博弈论、学习理论和方法论。它的兴起对公共财政论的核心理论——公共产品理论产生了影响,加深了搭便车问题的研究,对如何有效提供公共产品从实验角度给出了有益的启示,推动了公共产品理论的研究。     

The Relationships of Religion to Economics

The relationships between religion and economics are both complex and controversial. In this paper is explored one method for organizing those relationships. Four categories are examined which help identify possible options: economics separate from religion economics; in service of religion; religion in service of economics; and religion in union with economics. The paper begins with a definition of what is included under the headings of religion and economics. Next, each of the four categories is described and discussed. Conclusions close the paper.     

Bargaining over Public Goods

In a simple public good economy, we propose a natural bargaining procedure, the equilibria of which converge to Lindahl allocations as the cost of bargaining vanishes. The procedure splits the decision over the allocation in a decision about personalized prices and a decision about output levels for the public good. Since this procedure does not assume price-taking behavior, it provides a strategic foundation for the personalized taxes inherent in the Lindahl solution to the public goods problem.     

作为公共品的组织

组织是一种特别的公共品。如果能够使不同成员的边际贡献与他们从组织中得到的边际收益相等,那么组织就实现了均衡。由于成员的边际贡献难以测度,因此只有通过实施“一报还一报”的策略才能激励成员实现组织的共容利益。     

Decentralizing Public Goods Production

Decentralized decisions, to a bureau with a given budget, about the production of public goods is analyzed within a general equilibrium model with a representative agent and no pure profits. Contrary to previous results on decentralization it is shown that sequential decentralization (i) does not necessarily imply aggregate production efficiency and (ii) need not be optimal even if all public goods are neutral. Also, cost‐benefit criteria are derived and the marginal cost of public funds is characterized.     

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.     

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。     

Threatened Species as Public Goods and Public Bads

This paper discusses Pareto efficient allocations of an environmental commodity, which is both a public good and a public bad, with an application to the Scandinavian problem of conserving wild predators that are killing semi-domesticated reindeer. The paper begins by briefly outlining this conflict. This is followed by a theoretical analysis employing a diagrammatic tool called the Kolm triangle, which is an analogue of an Edgeworth box in an economy with a public good. Bargaining, Pareto improving reallocations and the shape of the Pareto set are discussed, using a simple model, where one of the agents is involountarily contributing to a public good. The paper concludes with an analysis of income-loss compensations and incentives for illegal hunting of predators.     

地方性公共品供给制度创新研究

在市场经济条件下 ,地方政府的主要职责是分级提供各种地方性公共品 ,满足居民生活和企业生产的共同需要。但是 ,政府提供并不等于政府生产 ,更不等于政府垄断生产。中国现行地方性公共品供给制度的主要缺陷是地方政府以及公共部门的过度垄断。按公共品生产与提供、直接生产与间接生产分开等原则 ,打破垄断 ,有序地向国内外开放公共品生产市场 ,大力推进公共品生产的市场化 ,形成“公”与“私”以及各自内部的竞争 ,将有助于提高地方性公共品供给效率 ,增进公共福利 ,并有助于推进中国的市场化进程。     

采矿业繁荣与公共品提供

资源型地区的财政收入高度依赖于采矿业,地方政府对财政资金的有效利用是提升居民福利水平和促进经济社会发展的必要条件.本文从财政收入获取形式影响地方政府行为激励的角度,分析了采矿业繁荣恶化地方公共品提供的机制.然后,文章基于1998-2018年中国地级市层面数据,利用国际矿产资源价格变动作为外生冲击,对采矿业繁荣影响地方公共品提供进行实证检验.结果 表明,采矿业繁荣尽管大幅度增加了地方财政收入,但是教育、医疗等民生性公共品供给水平并未因此而提升,基础设施等生产性公共品供给也未因此而改善.进一步研究发现,采矿业繁荣期,财政供养人员数量显著膨胀、财政资金使用效率降低,因而高速增长的财政收入并未有效转化为公共品供给.本文的结论表明,应该强化资源型地区财政资金使用的监督约束机制,提高财政资金使用效率.     

Framing Effects in Public Goods Experiments

Three effects of apparently superficial changes in presentation (framing effects in a broad sense), were replicated together in the same repeated linear public goods experiment with real financial incentives. First, 32 repetitions were presented as four phases of 8 repetitions with a break and results summary in between. Contribution levels decayed during each phase but then persistently returned to about 50% after each re-start. Second, subjects contributed more when the payoff function was decomposed in terms of a gift which is multiplied and distributed to the other players, rather than the equivalent public good from which everyone benefits. Third, subjects contributed more following a comprehension task which asks them to calculate the benefits to the group of various actions (the We frame), rather than the benefits to themselves (the I frame). These results suggest that aspects of presentation may have strong and replicable effects on experimental findings, even when care is taken to make the language and presentation of instructions as neutral as possible. Experimental economists should therefore give careful consideration to potential framing effects—or, better still, explicitly test for them—before making claims about the external validity of results.     

公共产品与版权保护

公共产品的排他性与竞争性并非纯粹的物理属性,而是在很大程度上取决于法律规定和制度设计。就作品而言,复制与传播技术的发展不仅改变了其公共产品属性,而且促成了版权法的产生、变革与发展。版权法必须根据作品公共产品属性的强弱设计排他规则,为私人提供作品创造激励、预设条件。     

Heterogeneous Agents in Public Goods Experiments

We explore by purely experimental means a heterogeneous agents scenario in experimental public goods games, assuming the existence of at least three types of player: free riders, cooperators, and reciprocators. We identify the various types by means of four classification methods, and then play the public goods game with homogeneous groups. We observe that (eq1) the average contribution level is enhanced in this setting; (2) the decay phenomenon is replicated in groups of pure free riders, whereas in groups of cooperative and reciprocating players the contribution is high and fairly stable throughout the game.The experiments reported in this paper were financed by the Cognitive Science Laboratory and the Computational and Experimental Economics Laboratory of the University of Trento. We would like to thank Marco Tecilla, Macrina Marchesin and Dino Parisi for their help in running the experiments, and Luigi Mittone, director of CEEL, for letting us use the laboratorys resources. Paul Webley, Robert Moir, seminar participants at the Universities of Pisa and Trento, Charles Holt and two anonymous referees provided very useful comments on a previous draft.     

Collusion-Proof Samuelson Conditions for Public Goods

We analyze a public good problem when agents form a grand coalition to promote their own collective goal instead of that of society as a whole. When collusion takes place under symmetric information , the collusion-proof Samuelson rule takes a simple form that is close to an ex ante cost-benefit analysis . Then, we analyze the case where agents collude under asymmetric information . First, we describe the set of collusion-proof allocations. Second, we establish the collusion-proof Samuelson rule that highlights the role of coalitional virtual valuations . Asymmetric information within the coalition allows the principal to recover some flexibility in the design of the optimal policy. We finally discuss the nature of the inefficiency created by the agents' collusive behavior and the scope of their ex ante gain in forming a coalition.     

公共物品与政府职能

公共物品是独立于私人物品和商品之外的,其生产和消费不能以市场方式解决的一种特殊物品或环境,是社会和个人生活的可能性和必要性条件.加深对公共物品的认识和研究不仅对现代公共经济学理论的发展具有开拓性意义,而且对我们进一步认识市场的局限性、科学界定政府职能和防止政府职能异化都具有重要意义.