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Nature of human capital, technology and ownership of public goods

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  • Halonen-Akatwijuka, Maija

Abstract

Besley and Ghatak (2001) show that a public good should be owned by the agent who values the public good the most — irrespective of technological factors. In this paper we relax their assumptions in a natural way by allowing the agents to be indispensable, and we show that the relative valuations are not the sole determinant of an optimal ownership structure but also the nature of human capital and technology matter.

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  • Halonen-Akatwijuka, Maija, 2012. "Nature of human capital, technology and ownership of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 939-945.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:96:y:2012:i:11:p:939-945
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.07.005
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    Cited by:

    1. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2012. "Public goods and the hold-up problem under asymmetric information," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 642-645.
    2. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2015. "Government versus private ownership of public goods: The role of bargaining frictions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 23-31.
    3. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2013. "Incomplete contracts and optimal ownership of public goods," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 94-96.
    4. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2021. "Optimal ownership of public goods under asymmetric information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. Müller, Daniel & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2017. "Optimal ownership of public goods in the presence of transaction costs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 88-92.
    6. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2024. "When should the government own the physical assets needed to provide public goods?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    7. Marian Tokar & Hanna Kumar & Inna Kostyrya & Alona Kliuchnik, 2023. "Determining the Eastern European non-governmental organizations sustainability under crisis conditions and during social and technological transformations," Eastern-European Journal of Enterprise Technologies, PC TECHNOLOGY CENTER, vol. 6(13 (126)), pages 33-41, December.
    8. Maija Halonen-Aktawijuka & Evanjelos Parfilis, 2022. "Who Should Own the Past?," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 22/758, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    9. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2014. "Optimal ownership of public goods reconsidered," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(1), pages 21-24.
    10. Schmitz, Patrick W. & Kusterer, David J., 2018. "Government versus Private Ownership of Public Goods: Experimental Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 13204, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Kusterer, David J. & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2020. "Public goods, property rights, and investment incentives: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 514-532.
    12. Halonen-Akatwijuka, Maija & Pafilis, Evagelos, 2014. "Location and ownership of public goods," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 123(3), pages 395-397.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Property rights; Public goods; Indispensability; Technology; Joint ownership;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out

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