IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/itaxpf/v20y2013i2p169-191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Clemens Fuest
  • Martin Kolmar

Abstract

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. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Clemens Fuest & Martin Kolmar, 2013. "Endogenous free riding and the decentralized user-fee financing of spillover goods in a n-region economy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(2), pages 169-191, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:20:y:2013:i:2:p:169-191
    DOI: 10.1007/s10797-012-9219-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10797-012-9219-y
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10797-012-9219-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Herschel I. Grossman, 2001. "The Creation of Effective Property Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 347-352, May.
    2. Kurtis J. Swope & Eckhard Janeba, 2005. "Taxes or Fees? The Political Economy of Providing Excludable Public Goods," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 7(3), pages 405-426, August.
    3. Stergios Skaperdas, 1996. "Contest success functions (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(2), pages 283-290.
    4. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    5. Xiangkang Yin, 2001. "A Tractable Alternative to Cobb‐Douglas Utility for Imperfect Competition," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 14-21, March.
    6. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "An Essay on Fiscal Federalism," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 22, pages 384-414, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios, 2007. "Economics of Conflict: An Overview," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 649-709, Elsevier.
    8. Buchanan, James M & Yoon, Yong J, 2000. "Symmetric Tragedies: Commons and Anticommons," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(1), pages 1-13, April.
    9. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    10. Clotfelter, Charles T., 1978. "Private security and the public safety," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 388-402, July.
    11. Clotfelter, Charles T, 1977. "Public Services, Private Substitutes, and the Demand for Protection against Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 867-877, December.
    12. Steven Shavell & A. Mitchell Polinsky, 2000. "The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 45-76, March.
    13. Brito, Dagobert L & Oakland, William H, 1980. "On the Monopolistic Provision of Excludable Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 691-704, September.
    14. Fraser, Clive D., 1996. "On the provision of excludable public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 111-130, April.
    15. Nirvikar Singh & Xavier Vives, 1984. "Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 546-554, Winter.
    16. Fuest, Clemens & Kolmar, Martin, 2007. "A theory of user-fee competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 497-509, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lisa Grazzini & Alessandro Petretto, 2017. "Spillover Effects in a Federal Country with Vertical Tax Externalities," Public Finance Review, , vol. 45(5), pages 701-720, September.
    2. Que, Wei & Zhang, Yabin & Liu, Shaobo, 2018. "The spatial spillover effect of fiscal decentralization on local public provision: Mathematical application and empirical estimation," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 331(C), pages 416-429.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fuest, Clemens & Kolmar, Martin, 2007. "A theory of user-fee competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 497-509, April.
    2. Christoffel Grechenig & Martin Kolmar, 2011. "The State’s Enforcement Monopoly and the Private Protection of Property," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_24, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    3. Martin Kolmar, 2015. "Costly Exclusion, Property-Rights Enforcement, and the Optimal Supply of Rival and Nonrival Goods," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 171(3), pages 405-431, September.
    4. Philipp Denter & Dana Sisak, 2015. "The fragility of deterrence in conflicts," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(1), pages 43-57, January.
    5. Ansink, Erik, 2011. "The Arctic scramble: Introducing claims in a contest model," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 693-707.
    6. Que, Wei & Zhang, Yabin & Liu, Shaobo, 2018. "The spatial spillover effect of fiscal decentralization on local public provision: Mathematical application and empirical estimation," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 331(C), pages 416-429.
    7. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    8. Hoffmann, Magnus & Rota-Graziosi, Grégoire, 2012. "Endogenous timing in general rent-seeking and conflict models," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 168-184.
    9. Hao Jia & Stergios Skaperdas, 2011. "Technologies of Conflict," Working Papers 101111, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    10. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Sheremeta, Roman M., 2013. "Side-payments and the costs of conflict," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 278-286.
    11. Hoffmann, Magnus & Rota-Graziosi, Grégoire, 2012. "Endogenous timing in general rent-seeking and conflict models," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 168-184.
    12. Helsley, Robert W. & Strange, William C., 2005. "Mixed markets and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(7), pages 1251-1275, July.
    13. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.
    14. Hwang, Sung-Ha, 2012. "Technology of military conflict, military spending, and war," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 226-236.
    15. Vahabi,Mehrdad, 2019. "The Political Economy of Predation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107591370, January.
    16. van Besouw, Bram & Ansink, Erik & van Bavel, Bas, 2016. "The economics of violence in natural states," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 139-156.
    17. Martin Kolmar, 2008. "Perfectly Secure Property Rights and Production Inefficiencies in Tullock Contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 441-456, August.
    18. Economides, George & Philippopoulos, Apostolis & Sakkas, Stelios, 2017. "Tuition fees: User prices and private incentives," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 91-103.
    19. Normann Lorenz, 2014. "A contest success function with a rent-dependent dissipation rate," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 1091-1102.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public goods; Club goods; Contests; Fiscal federalism; D74; H41; H70; K42;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:20:y:2013:i:2:p:169-191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.