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Let Tiebout pick up the tab: Pricing out externalities with free mobility

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  • Hiroki Watanabe

Abstract

Free mobility has not been thought of as an effective tool to correct over- or underproduction of externalities. In this paper, we establish that foot voting can internalize the cost of negative externalities. Workers have to accept the wage and rent, however high or low they are in equilibrium, if they cannot relocate. In reality, they are mobile and they can effectively influence the equilibrium wage and rent to reflect the externalities by threatening to walk away if the current externalities are at an intolerable level. Firms indirectly pay for the damage in the form of an increased labor or land cost and thus the externalities are partially internalized in an open city as opposed to a closed city. We will specify the condition under which an open equilibrium is efficient in the presence of externalities, and discuss potential policy implications of our findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Hiroki Watanabe, 2016. "Let Tiebout pick up the tab: Pricing out externalities with free mobility," ERSA conference papers ersa16p134, European Regional Science Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p134
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Externality; Foot Voting; Quality of Life; Production Economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R13 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General Equilibrium and Welfare Economic Analysis of Regional Economies
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics

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