IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_2663.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Legitimacy of Coercion for the Financing of Public Goods

Author

Listed:
  • Felix Bierbrauer

Abstract

The literature on public goods has shown that efficient outcomes are impossible if participation constraints have to be respected. This paper addresses the question whether they should be imposed. It asks under what conditions efficiency considerations justify that individuals are forced to pay for public goods that they do not value. It is shown that participation constraints are desirable if public goods are provided by a malevolent Leviathan. By contrast, with a Pigouvian planner, efficiency can be achieved. Finally, the paper studies the delegation of public goods provision to a profit-maximizing firm. This also makes participation constraints desirable.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Bierbrauer, 2009. "On the Legitimacy of Coercion for the Financing of Public Goods," CESifo Working Paper Series 2663, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2663
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp2663db.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Neeman, Zvika, 2004. "The relevance of private information in mechanism design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 55-77, July.
    2. Matthews, Steven & Moore, John, 1987. "Monopoly Provision of Quality and Warranties: An Exploration in the Theory of Multidimensional Screening," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 441-467, March.
    3. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 2005. "Contract Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262025760, April.
    4. Werner Güth & Martin Hellwig, 1986. "The private supply of a public good," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 121-159, December.
    5. Holmstrom, Bengt & Myerson, Roger B, 1983. "Efficient and Durable Decision Rules with Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(6), pages 1799-1819, November.
    6. Schmitz, Patrick W, 1997. "Monopolistic Provision of Excludable Public Goods under Private Information," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 52(1), pages 89-101.
    7. Rob, Rafael, 1989. "Pollution claim settlements under private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 307-333, April.
    8. Myerson, Roger B. & Satterthwaite, Mark A., 1983. "Efficient mechanisms for bilateral trading," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 265-281, April.
    9. Martin F. Hellwig, 2003. "Public-Good Provision with Many Participants," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 589-614.
    10. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    11. d'Aspremont, Claude & Gerard-Varet, Louis-Andre, 1979. "Incentives and incomplete information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 25-45, February.
    12. Acemoglu, Daron & Golosov, Mikhail & Tsyvinski, Aleh, 2008. "Markets versus governments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 159-189, January.
    13. Norman,P., 2000. "Efficient mechanisms for public goods with use exclusions," Working papers 15, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    14. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, April.
    15. Grüner, Hans Peter, 2008. "Public goods, participation constraints, and democracy: A possibility theorem," CEPR Discussion Papers 7066, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Peter Norman, 2004. "Efficient Mechanisms for Public Goods with Use Exclusions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(4), pages 1163-1188.
    17. Oliver D. Hart & Jean Tirole, 1988. "Contract Renegotiation and Coasian Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(4), pages 509-540.
    18. John O. Ledyard & Thomas R. Palfrey, 1999. "A Characterization of Interim Efficiency with Public Goods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 435-448, March.
    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. Bierbrauer, Felix J., 2011. "Incomplete contracts and excludable public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 553-569.
    2. Traxler, Christian, 2012. "Majority voting and the welfare implications of tax avoidance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 1-9.
    3. Michael Funke & Marc Gronwald, 2009. "A Convex Hull Approach to Counterfactual Analysis of Trade Openness and Growth," CESifo Working Paper Series 2692, CESifo.
    4. Felix Bierbrauer, 2010. "An incomplete contracts perspective on the provision and pricing of excludable public goods," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_01, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.

    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. Bierbrauer, Felix, 2009. "On the legitimacy of coercion for the nancing of public goods," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 265, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    2. Felix Bierbrauer, 2009. "On the legitimacy of coercion for the financing of public goods," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2009_15, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    3. Felix Bierbrauer, 2009. "On the Legitimacy of Coercion for the Financing of Public Goods," Working Papers 2009.98, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    4. Felix Bierbrauer, 2010. "An incomplete contracts perspective on the provision and pricing of excludable public goods," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_01, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    5. Martin Hellwig & Felix Bierbrauer, 2009. "Public Good Provision in a Large Economy," 2009 Meeting Papers 1062, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Bierbrauer, Felix & Netzer, Nick, 2016. "Mechanism design and intentions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 557-603.
    7. Bierbrauer, Felix J., 2011. "Incomplete contracts and excludable public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 553-569.
    8. Martin Hellwig, 2004. "Optimal Income Taxation, Public-Goods Provision and Public-Sector Pricing: A Contribution to the Foundations of Public Economics," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2004_14, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    9. Hellwig, Martin F., 2005. "A utilitarian approach to the provision and pricing of excludable public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 1981-2003, December.
    10. Ledyard, John O. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2007. "A general characterization of interim efficient mechanisms for independent linear environments," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 441-466, March.
    11. Börgers, Tilman & Postl, Peter, 2009. "Efficient compromising," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 2057-2076, September.
    12. Martin F. Hellwig, 2003. "Public-Good Provision with Many Participants," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 589-614.
    13. Hellwig, Martin F., 2007. "The provision and pricing of excludable public goods: Ramsey-Boiteux pricing versus bundling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 511-540, April.
    14. Bierbrauer, Felix J., 2011. "Incomplete contracts and excludable public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 553-569, August.
    15. Simon Loertscher & Leslie M. Marx, 2022. "To sell public or private goods," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 26(3), pages 385-415, September.
    16. Sahm, Marco, 2006. "Essays in Public Economic Theory," Munich Dissertations in Economics 5633, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    17. Hanming Fang & Peter Norman, 2010. "Optimal Provision of Multiple Excludable Public Goods," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 1-37, November.
    18. Pérez-Nievas, Mikel, 2000. "Interim efficient allocation mechanisms," UC3M Working papers. Economics 7220, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    19. Hanming Fang & Peter Norman, 2014. "Toward an efficiency rationale for the public provision of private goods," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(2), pages 375-408, June.
    20. Beccuti, Juan & Möller, Marc, 2021. "Screening by mode of trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 400-420.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public goods; mechanism design; incomplete contracts; regulations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    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:ces:ceswps:_2663. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.