A comment on the role of prices for excludable public goods

Blomquist and Christensen [(2005). The role of prices for excludable public goods, International Tax and Public Finance, 12 ,61–79] argue that welfare is initially decreasing in the price of an excludable public good and that the case for a positive price for an excludable public good price is weak. We argue that this result follows from their particular characterization of the public good and that an alternative and equally reasonable characterization overturns their result. Hence, the policy case for a positive price on the public good is stronger than Blomquist and Christiansen suggest. JEL Classification H21 · H41     

Imperfect competition,indirect tax harmonization and public goods

This paper shows that the welfare implications of indirect tax harmonization in a two-country imperfectly competitive framework, are, in general, indeterminate in the presence of public goods: Both countries can be made either worse off or better off. This holds under both the destination and origin principles of taxation and is in sharp contrast to existing results where revenue effects are not present. A consequence of this indeterminacy is that a precise evaluation of tax-harmonizing policies under both tax regimes requires an explicit consideration of the underlying preferences for private and public goods as well as the oligopolistic sectors’ relative cost structures. JEL code F15⋅ H21⋅ H41⋅ H87     

Tax competition, excludable public goods, and user charges

This paper provides an explanation for the increasing reliance on revenue from user charges on excludable public goods. We develop a model with many identical countries. The government of each country imposes a source-based tax on capital and supplies an excludable public good to heterogeneous households. Without tax competition, the price on the public good is zero. Tax competition induces each country to choose a positive price. The reliance on user charges turns out to be increasing in the intensity of tax competition measured by the number of countries. A coordinated decrease in user charges is shown to raise welfare in all countries.      

A conceptual framework for understanding global and transnational public goods for health

The paper presents two taxonomies for classifying global and transnational health‐promoting activities according to three parameters of publicness — non‐rivalry of benefits, non‐excludability of non‐payers and the aggregation technologies. Based on these taxonomies and their implications for efficiency and equity, this paper identifies the need for international cooperation in some, but certainly not all, areas concerning the provision of such health‐promoting activities. Additionally, institutional responses are evaluated in light of the various health‐promoting activities. The roles of multilaterals, non‐governmental organisations, foundations and nations are addressed. A host of current global health issues — for example, public‐private partnerships, international orphan drug legislature and patent protection — are addressed.     

The political economy of pricing and capacity decisions for congestible local public goods in a federal state

This paper studies the political economy of pricing and investment for excludable and congestible public goods in a federal state. Although the model applies to many local congestible public facilities (such as libraries, museums and public swimming facilities), our main motivation is the problem of providing and pricing road infrastructure in federal states. The two-region model we develop allows for spill-overs between regions, it takes into account congestion, and it captures demand heterogeneity both between and within regions. Regional decisions are taken by majority voting; federal decisions are taken by a minimum winning coalition in a legislature of regionally elected representatives. We have the following results. First, when users form the majority in at least one region, decentralized decision making performs certainly better than centralized decision making if spill-overs are not too large. Centralized decisions may yield higher welfare than decentralization only if users have a large majority and the infrastructure in a given region is intensively used by both local and outside users. Second, if non-users form a majority in both regions, centralized decision making and decentralized decision making yield the same socially undesirable outcome, with prices that are much too high. Third, the performance of decentralized supply is strongly enhanced by local self-financing rules; this prevents potential exploitation of users within regions.     

Pawns and queens revisited: public provision of private goods when individuals make mistakes

This paper analyses the optimal tax policy and public provision of private goods when the government is paternalistic and has a redistributive objective. When individuals only differ with respect to their income-earning abilities, the publicly-provided goods should be overprovided, relative to the decentralised optimum, if society’s marginal valuation of them exceeds the individual valuation and if these goods are complements to labour supply. However, when the individuals also differ in terms of their valuation of the publicly-provided good, this simple conclusion does not hold. Optimal marginal income tax rates are shown to differ from the standard rules if publicly-provided goods and labour supply are related.      

Increasing marginal costs and satiation in the private provision of public goods: group size and optimality revisited

It is widely recognized that the degree of inefficiency in the voluntary provision of a public good increases with the group size of an economy. However, we find that only a slight modification in the conventional assumptions gives rise to a profound difference in outcome. In particular, we show that there is a case where the Nash equilibrium provision and the efficient provision will converge as the size of an economy grows. To show this, we assume individuals face increasing marginal cost of voluntary provision and their preference function has a finite satiety point.      

Professional Accounting Standards and the Public Sector—a Mismatch

Professional accounting standards have been applied to the public sector in Australia as part of the process of adopting accrual accounting. However, the reason given for their application to the public sector is questionable. The modes of operation of governments and of the business sector are very different, and accounting standards must be tailored to suit the specific information needs of each sector for the accounting systems to provide relevant information. The four Accounting Concepts Statements and the broad requirements of AAS 29 and AAS 31 are examined to show where changes are needed in the standards to make their information more relevant to the needs of the public sector. These changes would better enable accrual accounting information systems to assist in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector operations and the accountability of governments to parliament and citizens.     

Social justice in a cold climate: Could social accounting make a difference?

Building on the argument that justice should be the transcendent principle in accounting, we argue that social accounting invokes notions of community, shared social values, and fairness in the distribution of social resources. These ideas are elaborated in relation to local government, which provides a window on how communities make decisions about distributing their social resources and the accounting processes which guide these decisions. Fieldwork in two large but contrasting English local authorities suggests that the potential of social accounting is not reflected in the predominant accounting systems in local government organisations, but in more subtle and successful forms of ‘enacted social accounting’. Its utility relates to the achievement of short-term social goals where social injustices persist and accountants, managers and politicians seek to accommodate financial pressures to protect the most vulnerable members of the community. We identify local government accountants as morally responsible for the further development of social accounting which envisions a future for local government, and establishes links between social justice, environmentalism and localism.     

农村公共产品供给与农民收入问题研究

阻碍农民增收和农村经济发展的根本原因在于改革开放以来农村公共产品供给不足,表现为农村公共产品供给与需求失衡;同时,政府将有限的财力和公共产品的大部分投向城市,形成了公共产品供给的城市化倾向,这又表现为城乡公共产品供给失衡.农村公共产品的长期短缺严重地影响了农村私人产品的产出效率.因此,作者提出了必须关注农村农民对公共产品的需求;建立起完善的农村公共产品体系等重要观点.     

Endogenous free riding and the decentralized user-fee financing of spillover goods in a n-region economy

The paper analyzes the strategic effects of decentralized user-fee and enforcement policies for the financing of interregional spillover goods. We derive the equilibrium pricing and enforcement rules for a n-region economy. We show that under mild conditions on the pattern of substitution between spillover goods and contrary to the 2-region case, the decentralized equilibrium cannot be Pareto improved by coordinated policy changes. However, decentralized equilibria are suboptimal from the point of view of utilitarian welfare. We characterize the direction of the distortion for this case. The regions’ incentives for user-fee enforcement are ambiguous in general. With only two regions and if regions only charge non-residents, however, there is overinvestment in user-fee enforcement in the decentralized equilibrium. For the case of a Tullock enforcement function and linear demand for the spillover goods we show that welfare is u-shaped in a parameter that measures the technological advantage of user-fee enforcement.     

强化地方政府税权的对策探讨

随着市场经济的发展,地方政府在地方经济中的重要作用越来越突出,而这离不开地方政府的税收支持。可是长期以来,我国的地方政府在税权方面欠缺,成为经济发展的制约因素,因此,如何从理论与实践上来认识并解决这一问题,具有重要意义。     

Yardstick competition and public sector innovation

The paper addresses the incentives of the public sector to implement new technologies in public service provision. The focus is on the role of local governments under decentralization. Exploiting variation in the level of innovation in a large sample of US school districts, the impact of yardstick competition on the choice of public sector technologies is identified. It is shown that the impact of other districts’ innovation activity on a district’s innovation score is much stronger in communities where incumbents face a high risk of being elected out of office. This finding suggests that under decentralization, yardstick competition is an important force shaping the decisions of local governments to adopt new technologies.      

公共品生产的市场化与制度创新

在市场经济条件下 ,资源配置以市场机制为基础 ,政府的基本职责是提供公共品 ,弥补市场配置的缺陷。然而 ,政府提供并不等于政府生产 ,更不等于政府直接的垄断生产。中国公共品生产制度安排的主要缺陷是政府及其公共部门的过度垄断 ,私人资本和国外资本进入公共品生产领域存在种种制度壁垒和不公平竞争条件。中国加入WTO后 ,必须逐步向国外厂商开放政府采购市场 ,同时 ,公共品生产市场的对内开放也实属必然。在国家宏观调控下 ,有序地向国内外开放公共品市场 ,实现政府机制与市场机制混合调节以及公共部门与私人部门、国内资本与国外资本的职能互补和公平竞争 ,必须进行包括政府规制制度、财政税收制度、公共投资和补贴制度、产权制度以及企业组织制度等在内的全面制度创新。     

Use of derivatives in public sector organizations

The present paper develops and tests a model explaining public sector derivative use in terms of budget discrepancy minimization. The model is different from private sector models. Private sector models do not readily translate into the public sector, which typically faces different objectives. Hypotheses are developed and tested using logistic regression over a sample of Australian Commonwealth public sector organizations. It is found that public sector organization derivative use is positively correlated with liabilities and size consistent with the hypotheses concerning budget discrepancy management.     

Income shifting and U.S. international trade in goods statistics

Intrafirm trade represents greater than one-third of total U.S. international trade in goods. Since these are not arm’s-length transactions, trade policymakers have voiced concerns that income shifting may distort international trade in goods statistics through the manipulation of transfer prices. Using country-level data on intrafirm exports and imports, we estimate a path analysis that simultaneously tests how and to what extent tax-motivated transfer pricing and real investment decisions affect intrafirm trade in goods statistics. Contrary to speculation, we do not find an economically significant relation between transfer pricing and intrafirm trade in goods statistics. In contrast, we find that tax-motivated location decisions create a 21 (20) percent or $819.7 ($927.1) million difference in mean intrafirm exports (imports) between the U.S. and a low- and high-tax country. This study provides trade policymakers with relevant information about the extent to which real investment decisions and accounting manipulations affect intrafirm trade in goods statistics and contributes to the international trade and income shifting literatures.     

Land-use zoning in a local economy with optimal property taxes and public expenditures

A three-sector, open-city framework is used to study the impact of changes in land-use zoning on a local economy. In addition to the customary direct supply effects, a rezoning prompts changes in local property tax rates, public expenditures, and the location decisions of households and firms. Simulations are used to trace these general equilibrium adjustments. The final effects of a residentialto-commercial rezoning on crucial local economic variables, including residential and commercial site rents, property tax rates and the mix of public services, may contrast sharply with popular expectations based solely on a partial equilibrium analysis.     

论农村公共产品供给的筹资机制及其法律保障

筹资机制是解决农村公共产品供给问题的突破口,包括筹资主体、客体和程序三个部分。筹资主体包括主导性主体(各级政府组成的"三层结构")、辅助性主体(社会中介组织、企业和个人)和其他重要主体(国际组织);筹资客体包括核心客体(税收、公债和财政政策)和重要客体(收费、民间资金和国际资金);筹资程序应当满足科学化和法治化两个标准。农村公共产品供给筹资机制的法律调整应当采用"四步骤"模式,在宪法、行政法规、专门性法律规范和特殊性法律规范四个层面构建筹资机制的法律保障。     

农村公共产品、农民国民待遇与农业发展

农村公共产品的供给不足和农民自我国负担也是农民负担。随着中国加入WTO，政府对农业产业的支持和保护应由过去的流通领域转移到生产领域，为农业再生产提供必需的外部条件，使农业投资大体可获取平均利润。为此，政府应当前农村提供充足的公共产品，并在其他方面给农民以国民待遇。