In Medio Stat Virtus: Does a Mixed Economy increase Welfare?

Alessandro Fedele and Sara Depedri ()
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Sara Depedri: EURICSE and University of Trento

No BEMPS25, BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series from Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen

Abstract: Over the past few decades, social enterprises have grown remarkably. This paper investigates how social enterprises affect access to social services (e.g., education and health-care) and utilitarian welfare. To this end, two economic systems are compared: a market economy system, where all firms are profit maximizers, and a mixed economy system, where both for-profit businesses and social enterprises are present. Findings show that individuals are more likely to have access to social services within mixed economy. Moreover, conditions are derived under which utilitarian welfare is larger within mixed economy. Public policies in support of social enterprises (e.g., subsidies) are shown to result in the following trade-off: access to social services is further enhanced but utilitarian welfare is more likely to be lower than that within market economy.

Keywords: market economy; mixed economy; access to socials ervices; utilitarian welfare; public policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L13 L33 L38 P51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: [36 pages]
Date: 2015-01
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Related works:
Journal Article: IN MEDIO STAT VIRTUS: DOES A MIXED ECONOMY INCREASE WELFARE? (2016)
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