Beyond Pigou: Externalities and Civil Society in the Supply-Demand Framework

Casey Mulligan

No 31095, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The extent of voluntary cooperation in the presence of externalities is shown as an equilibrium outcome in the supply and demand framework. The analysis uses familiar ingredients to provide a new way of understanding the results of the extensive literature beginning with Buchanan, Coase, Ostrom, Shapley, Telser, Tullock, and Williamson showing that a Pigouvian tax is not the only alternative to independently acting individuals who are coordinated merely through distorted market prices. Voluntary cooperation can have a far different incidence than Pigouvian taxes and subsidies while changing the character of the costs resulting from externalities. The paper discusses applications including forest management, volume discounts, residential associations, energy policy, the scope of planning of household activities, and the role of workplaces in preventing infectious disease.

JEL-codes: D62 D71 H23 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-pub
Note: EEE IO PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published as Casey B. Mulligan, 2023. "Beyond Pigou: externalities and civil society in the supply–demand framework," Public Choice, vol 196(1-2), pages 1-18.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31095.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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31095

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31095

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().