IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/uctcwp/qt2587p3z1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America

Author

Listed:
  • Klein, Daniel B.

Abstract

The turnpike companies of early America (roughly 1795-1840) were very unprofitable but conferred vast benefits to communities served. Purchases were necessary to complete the road and unprofitability was foreseen. Thus the turnpikes would appear to have been public goods. Yet hundreds of turnpikes were provided through voluntary association. The free rider problem was overcome by an almost vigilant impulse to participate and to see that your neighbor did likewise.

Suggested Citation

  • Klein, Daniel B., 1990. "The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt2587p3z1, University of California Transportation Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt2587p3z1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2587p3z1.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Social Interactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1063-1093, Nov.-Dec..
    2. Bohm, Peter, 1972. "Estimating demand for public goods: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 111-130.
    3. Cheung, Steven N S, 1973. "The Fable of the Bees: An Economic Investigation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 11-33, April.
    4. Dawes, Robyn M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "Anomalies: Cooperation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 187-197, Summer.
    5. Brubaker, Earl R, 1975. "Free Ride, Free Revelation, or Golden Rule?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 147-161, April.
    6. Peter Bohm, 1972. "Estimating the demand for public goods: An experiment," Framed Field Experiments 00126, The Field Experiments Website.
    7. Marwell, Gerald & Ames, Ruth E., 1981. "Economists free ride, does anyone else? : Experiments on the provision of public goods, IV," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 295-310, June.
    8. Coase, R H, 1974. "The Lighthouse in Economics," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 357-376, October.
    9. Sugden, Robert, 1984. "Reciprocity: The Supply of Public Goods through Voluntary Contributions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376), pages 772-787, December.
    10. Seavoy, Ronald E., 1978. "The Public Service Origins of the American Business Corporation," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(1), pages 30-60, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. JOHN McMILLAN, 1979. "The Free‐Rider Problem: A Survey," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 55(2), pages 95-107, June.
    2. Thomas McCaleb & Richard Wagner, 1985. "The experimental search for free riders: Some reflections and observations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 479-490, January.
    3. L. Metcalf & S. Benn, 2012. "The Corporation is Ailing Social Technology: Creating a ‘Fit for Purpose’ Design for Sustainability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 111(2), pages 195-210, December.
    4. Sánchez, Isabel, 1991. "La provision voluntaria de bienes publicos: Resultados Experimentales," DE - Documentos de Trabajo. Economía. DE 3000, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    5. Jesse Malkin & Aaron Wildavsky, 1991. "Why the Traditional Distinction between Public and Private Goods Should be Abandoned," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 3(4), pages 355-378, October.
    6. Kassas, Bachir & Palma, Marco A. & Hall, Charles R., 2020. "Informing Generic Advertising Programs by Investigating Income and Relative Return Heterogeneities in Voluntary Contributions Mechanisms," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 46(2), August.
    7. Ledyard, John O., "undated". "Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research," Working Papers 861, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    8. Anderson White, T. & Ford Runge, C., 1995. "The emergence and evolution of collective action: Lessons from watershed management in Haiti," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(10), pages 1683-1698, October.
    9. Harrison, Glenn W & Hirshleifer, Jack, 1989. "An Experimental Evaluation of Weakest Link/Best Shot Models of Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 201-225, February.
    10. Eli Noam, 1982. "Demand functions and the valuation of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 271-280, January.
    11. Charles Plott, 2014. "Public choice and the development of modern laboratory experimental methods in economics and political science," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 331-353, December.
    12. Bolton, Gary E. & Katok, Elena, 1998. "An experimental test of the crowding out hypothesis: The nature of beneficent behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 315-331, November.
    13. Jiao Luo & Aseem Kaul, 2019. "Private action in public interest: The comparative governance of social issues," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 476-502, April.
    14. Claudia Keser & Frans Van Winden, 2000. "Conditional Cooperation and Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(1), pages 23-39, March.
    15. Wiser, Ryan H., 2007. "Using contingent valuation to explore willingness to pay for renewable energy: A comparison of collective and voluntary payment vehicles," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3-4), pages 419-432, May.
    16. Woller, Gary M., 1996. "Business ethics, society, and Adam Smith: Some observations on the liberal business ethos," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 311-332.
    17. le Sage, Sander & van der Heijden, Eline, 2015. "The Effect of Voting on Contributions in a Public Goods Game," Discussion Paper 2015-039, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    18. Kirchgässner, Gebhard, 2010. "On minimal morals," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 330-339, September.
    19. le Sage, Sander & van der Heijden, Eline, 2015. "The Effect of Voting on Contributions in a Public Goods Game," Other publications TiSEM a8688f86-b104-4add-b1bc-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Richard Martin & John Randal, 2005. "Voluntary contributions to a public good: A natural field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00306, The Field Experiments Website.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Architecture;

    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:cdl:uctcwp:qt2587p3z1. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucbus.html .

    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.