The lighthouse after Coase: Alternative ways to provide goods and func-tions of state

Grigory Kalyagin

No 32, Working Papers from Moscow State University, Faculty of Economics

Abstract: This article is an attempt to find the answer to the question of what determines the choice of the method of providing different goods. Why is one good given as private good, the other as a club good, the third as a practically pure public good, the fourth as a mix of different forms. In fact, this question includes the question of what the state should (and should not) do. The main part of the article is devoted to a review of the discussion concerning the good, which played a special role in economic theory - the lighthouses. Although the classics of political economy XIX - early XX centuries. considered them as striking examples of pure public goods, the famous article by R. Coase [Coase, 1974] concludes that the services of lighthouses in Eng-land and Wales were not funded from general taxes, that is, they were not provided as public goods until the second third XIX century. Further development of this discussion, which is still incomplete and actual, leads to the understanding that lighthouse services are provided in dif-ferent countries and / or at different times as goods of various types. The same applies to al-most any other goods. The concrete way of providing this good depends not only on the country and time, but also on how to counter what specific offenses it provides. We conclude that there are no private, public, etc. the benefits themselves do not exist, and a socially effective way of delivering benefits depends on the technologies and institutions available in the society.

Keywords: public good; lighthouse; market failures; Coase; Stiglitz. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 D61 H41 H42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2020-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hpe
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