IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/edecon/v10y2002i2p145-163.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Academic Standards as Public Goods and Varieties of Free-Rider Behaviour

Author

Listed:
  • Denton Marks

Abstract

Economists have long recognized that goods allowing non-rival enjoyment accompanied by costly exclusion - pure public goods - present a challenge to efficient production because beneficiaries tend to understate their willingness to support such goods: such 'free-riders' realize that they cannot be denied access and may choose to enjoy without providing appropriate contribution. 'Academic standards' help identify the quality of academic performance (e.g., research, educated students), but the benefit they confer (e.g., reputation) strongly resembles a public good with its corresponding tendency to elicit free-riding and inefficiently low levels of production or support. This paper explores the manner in which such standards confer benefit, exhibit public good characteristics, and elicit free-riding and 'underproduction' in various parts of the academic community. It examines the resulting challenge to the maintenance of academic quality and the difficulty of discouraging free-rider behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Denton Marks, 2002. "Academic Standards as Public Goods and Varieties of Free-Rider Behaviour," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 145-163.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:edecon:v:10:y:2002:i:2:p:145-163
    DOI: 10.1080/09645290210126896
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09645290210126896
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09645290210126896?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. Cooter, Robert, 1998. "Expressive Law and Economics," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 585-608, June.
    2. Michael S. McPherson & Morton Owen Schapiro, 1999. "Tenure Issues in Higher Education," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 85-98, Winter.
    3. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 1998. "The Approach of Institutional Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 166-192, March.
    4. Rothschild, Michael & White, Lawrence J, 1995. "The Analytics of the Pricing of Higher Education and Other Services in Which the Customers Are Inputs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 573-586, June.
    5. Elinor Ostrom, 2000. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 137-158, Summer.
    6. Cooter, Robert, 1998. "Expressive Law and Economics," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt3w34j60j, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    7. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    8. Robert Cooter, 1998. "Expressive Law and Economics," CESifo Working Paper Series 161, CESifo.
    9. Ronald G. Ehrenberg, 1999. "Adam Smith Goes to College: An Economist Becomes an Academic Administrator," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 99-116, Winter.
    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. Geraint Johnes & Kwok Tong Soo, 2017. "Grades across Universities over Time," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(1), pages 106-131, January.
    2. Silva, Pedro Luís & DesJardins, Stephen L. & Biscaia, Ricardo & Sá, Carla & Teixeira, Pedro N., 2023. "Public and Private School Grade Inflations Patterns in Secondary Education," IZA Discussion Papers 16016, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Fluet, Claude & Galbiati, Rpbertp, 2016. "Lois et normes : les enseignements de l'économie comportementale," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 92(1-2), pages 191-215, Mars-Juin.
    2. Apffelstaedt, Arno & Freundt, Jana & Oslislo, Christoph, 2022. "Social norms and elections: How elected rules can make behavior (in)appropriate," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 148-177.
    3. Daniel A. Brent & Lata Gangadharan & Anca Mihut & Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Taxation, redistribution, and observability in social dilemmas," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(5), pages 826-846, October.
    4. Jean‐Robert Tyran & Lars P. Feld, 2006. "Achieving Compliance when Legal Sanctions are Non‐deterrent," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 108(1), pages 135-156, March.
    5. Claudia Keser & Andreas Markstädter & Martin Schmidt, 2014. "Mandatory minimum contributions, heterogeneous endowments and voluntary public-good provision," CIRANO Working Papers 2014s-47, CIRANO.
    6. Keser, Claudia & Markstädter, Andreas & Schmidt, Martin, 2014. "Mandatory minimum contributions, heterogenous endowments and voluntary public-good provision," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 224, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    7. Ellingsen, Tore & Mohlin, Erik, 2022. "A Model of Social Duties," Working Papers 2022:14, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    8. Lewis, John, 2009. "Hitting and hoping?: Meeting the exchange rate and inflation criteria during a period of nominal convergence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 508-524, December.
    9. Cason, Timothy N. & Gangadharan, Lata, 2013. "Empowering neighbors versus imposing regulations: An experimental analysis of pollution reduction schemes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 469-484.
    10. Paul T. de Beer & Robert H.J. Mosch, 2007. "The waning and restoration of social norms: a formal model of the dynamics of norm compliance and norm violation," DNB Working Papers 131, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & Matthew O. Jackson, 2017. "Social Norms and the Enforcement of Laws," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 245-295.
    12. Bartels, Lara & Kesternich, Martin, 2022. "Motivate the crowd or crowd- them out? The impact of local government spending on the voluntary provision of a green public good," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-040, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. Abraham, Diya & Corazzini, Luca & Fišar, Miloš & Reggiani, Tommaso, 2023. "Coordinating donations via an intermediary: The destructive effect of a sunk overhead cost," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 287-304.
    14. Galbiati, Roberto & Vertova, Pietro, 2008. "Obligations and cooperative behaviour in public good games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 146-170, September.
    15. Aspasia Tsaoussi & Eleni Zervogianni, 2010. "Judges as satisficers: a law and economics perspective on judicial liability," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 333-357, June.
    16. Douhou, Salima & Magnus, Jan R. & van Soest, Arthur, 2011. "The perception of small crime," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 749-763.
    17. Riedel, Nadine & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah, 2013. "Asymmetric obligations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 67-80.
    18. Sugiyama, Yuri, 2022. "Can Soft Law Improve the Welfare of Sexual Minorities? The Case of Same-sex Partnership Policy in Japan," CEI Working Paper Series 2022-06, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    19. Prasenjit Banerjee & Vegard Iversen & Sandip Mitra & Antonio Nicolò & Kunal Sen, 2018. "Politicians and Their Promises in an Uncertain World: Evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in India," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1806, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    20. Bicchieri, Cristina & Dimant, Eugen & Xiao, Erte, 2021. "Deviant or wrong? The effects of norm information on the efficacy of punishment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 209-235.

    More about this item

    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:taf:edecon:v:10:y:2002:i:2:p:145-163. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CEDE20 .

    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.