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On the Legitimacy of Coercion for the Financing of Public Goods

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  • 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
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    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp2663db.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    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. Michael Funke & Marc Gronwald, 2009. "A Convex Hull Approach to Counterfactual Analysis of Trade Openness and Growth," Quantitative Macroeconomics Working Papers 20906, Hamburg University, Department of Economics.
    3. Traxler, Christian, 2012. "Majority voting and the welfare implications of tax avoidance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 1-9.
    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.

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    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

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