A Comment on The Role of Prices for Excludable Public Goods

Gilbert Metcalf () and Jongsang Park

No 12535, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Blomquist and Christensen (2005) argue that welfare is initially decreasing in the price of an excludable public good and that the case for a positive price for an excludable public good price is weak. We argue that this result follows from their particular characterization of the public good and that an alternative and equally reasonable characterization overturns their result. Hence the policy case for a positive price on the public good is stronger than Blomquist and Christiansen suggest. We also provide a flexible characterization of public goods that nests a wide variety of public goods models.

JEL-codes: H21 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
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Date: Written
Note: PE EEE
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Related works:
Working Paper: A Comment on the Role of Prices for Excludable Public Goods (2005)
Journal Article: A comment on the role of prices for excludable public goods (2007)
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