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On the provision of excludable public goods: General taxes or user prices?

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  • George Economides
  • Apostolis Philippopoulos

Abstract

This paper compares some of the most common ways of financing the provision of publicly provided impure public goods/services in a unified dynamic general equilibrium framework with heterogeneous income groups. The focus is on the effects of user prices on individual incentives and how the latter shape aggregate outcomes and distribution. We show that a market‐like mechanism of user prices not only improves individual incentives and enhances aggregate efficiency, but it is also Pareto improving. However, such a mechanism is not beneficial or simply collapses when social externalities are strong, when the government adopts a mixed system that combines user prices with heavy subsidization of user costs, and when there is a minimum amount of the good that everybody needs.

Suggested Citation

  • George Economides & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2024. "On the provision of excludable public goods: General taxes or user prices?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 71(3), pages 379-415, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:71:y:2024:i:3:p:379-415
    DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12373
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General

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