IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijethy/v13y2017i1p147-162.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Let Tiebout pick up the tab: Pricing out externalities with free mobility

Author

Listed:
  • Hiroki Watanabe

Abstract

Free mobility has not been thought of as an effective tool to correct over- or underproduction of externalities. In this paper, we establish that foot voting can internalize the cost of negative externalities. Workers have to accept the wage and rent, however high or low they are in equilibrium, if they cannot relocate. In reality, they are mobile and they can effectively influence the equilibrium wage and rent to reflect the externalities by threatening to walk away if the current externalities are at an intolerable level. Firms indirectly pay for the damage in the form of an increased labor or land cost and thus the externalities are partially internalized in an open city as opposed to a closed city. We will specify the condition under which an open equilibrium is efficient in the presence of externalities, and discuss potential policy implications of our findings.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Hiroki Watanabe, 2017. "Let Tiebout pick up the tab: Pricing out externalities with free mobility," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 13(1), pages 147-162, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijethy:v:13:y:2017:i:1:p:147-162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ijet.12121
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416-416.
    2. Stephen M. Calabrese & Dennis N. Epple & Richard E. Romano, 2012. "Inefficiencies from Metropolitan Political and Fiscal Decentralization: Failures of Tiebout Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1081-1111.
    3. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    4. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    5. Roback, Jennifer, 1982. "Wages, Rents, and the Quality of Life," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1257-1278, December.
    6. Pethig, Rudiger, 1976. "Pollution, welfare, and environmental policy in the theory of Comparative Advantage," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 160-169, February.
    7. T Tabuchi, 1982. "Optimal Distribution of City Sizes in a Region," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 14(1), pages 21-32, January.
    8. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2004. "Micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 48, pages 2063-2117, Elsevier.
    9. Cropper, Maureen L & Oates, Wallace E, 1992. "Environmental Economics: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 675-740, June.
    10. Baumol, William J, 1972. "On Taxation and the Control of Externalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 307-322, June.
    11. Fujishima, Shota, 2013. "Evolutionary implementation of optimal city size distributions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 404-410.
    12. Merrifield, John D., 1988. "The impact of selected abatement strategies on transnational pollution, the terms of trade, and factor rewards: A general equilibrium approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 259-284, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cropper, Maureen L & Oates, Wallace E, 1992. "Environmental Economics: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 675-740, June.
    2. Albouy, David & Behrens, Kristian & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric & Seegert, Nathan, 2019. "The optimal distribution of population across cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 102-113.
    3. Watanabe, Hiroki, 2015. "A Spatial Production Economy Explains Zipf’s Law for Gross Metropolitan Product," MPRA Paper 72907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Frans P. Vries & Nick Hanley, 2016. "Incentive-Based Policy Design for Pollution Control and Biodiversity Conservation: A Review," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(4), pages 687-702, April.
    5. Dinkelman, Taryn & Schulhofer-Wohl, Sam, 2015. "Migration, congestion externalities, and the evaluation of spatial investments," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 189-202.
    6. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    7. repec:esx:essedp:729 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. James Alm & H. Spencer Banzhaf, 2012. "Designing Economic Instruments For The Environment In A Decentralized Fiscal System," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 177-202, April.
    9. Rauscher, Michael, 2001. "International trade, foreign investment, and the environment," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 29, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    10. Breinlich, Holger & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2014. "Regional Growth and Regional Decline," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 4, pages 683-779, Elsevier.
    11. Behrens, Kristian & Mion, Giordano & Murata, Yasusada & Suedekum, Jens, 2017. "Spatial frictions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 40-70.
    12. Ulrich Steger & Wouter Achterberg (†) & Kornelis Blok & Henning Bode & Walter Frenz & Corinna Gather & Gerd Hanekamp & Dieter Imboden & Matthias Jahnke & Michael Kost & Rudi Kurz & Hans G. Nutzinger &, 2005. "Sustainable Development and Innovation in the Energy Sector," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-540-26882-6 edited by Friederike Wütscher, September.
    13. Hatfield, John William & Kosec, Katrina, 2013. "Federal competition and economic growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 144-159.
    14. Klaus Eisenack, 2014. "The Inefficiency of Private Adaptation to Pollution in the Presence of Endogenous Market Structure," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 57(1), pages 81-99, January.
    15. Gilles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2020. "The Economics of Urban Density," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 3-26, Summer.
    16. Matti Sarvimäki, 2011. "Agglomeration in the Periphery," SERC Discussion Papers 0080, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    17. Joshua Graff Zivin & Matthew Neidell, 2013. "Environment, Health, and Human Capital," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 689-730, September.
    18. Markusen, James R. & Morey, Edward R. & Olewiler, Nancy, 1995. "Competition in regional environmental policies when plant locations are endogenous," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 55-77, January.
    19. Sidorov, A., 2018. "Urban Costs and their Role in a Central Places Theory a la Christaller-Loesch," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 12-31.
    20. MacKenzie, Ian A. & Ohndorf, Markus, 2016. "Coasean bargaining in the presence of Pigouvian taxation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 1-11.
    21. Grey Gordon & Pablo Guerrón-Quintana, 2019. "On Regional Borrowing, Default, and Migration," Working Paper 19-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R13 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General Equilibrium and Welfare Economic Analysis of Regional Economies
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijethy:v:13:y:2017:i:1:p:147-162. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1742-7355 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.