On the legitimacy of coercion for the financing of public goods

Felix Bierbrauer ()
Additional contact information
Felix Bierbrauer: Max Planck Institut Bonn

No 265, Discussion Papers from SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich

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 par- ticipation 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.

Keywords: Public goods; Mechanism Design; Incomplete Contracts; Regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D82 H41 L51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe
Date: 2009-07
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sfbtr15.de/dipa/265.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:trf:wpaper:265

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Claudia Jung ().