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The Growth of Competitive Governments

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  • Albert Breton

Abstract

Consumers are indifferent about the provenance of the goods and services they consume. Given their information, income, and preferences, they choose from the lowest price source--with price defined to include transaction and deadweight costs. There are many supply sources: families, charitable and humanitarian organizations, cooperatives, business enterprises, and governments. These compete with each other. Competitive success is determined by comparative advantage, which in turn depends not only on differential economies of scale and other "standard" factors, but also on the differential capacity to control free riding and to reduce the deadweight burdens of the sums that have to be levied to pay for the goods and services demanded.

Suggested Citation

  • Albert Breton, 1989. "The Growth of Competitive Governments," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 22(4), pages 717-750, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:22:y:1989:i:4:p:717-50
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    Cited by:

    1. MacKenzie, D.W., 2008. "The use of knowledge about society," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 678-688, September.
    2. Christos Constantatos & Edwin G. West, 1991. "Measuring Returns from Education: Some Neglected Factors," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 17(2), pages 127-138, June.
    3. Bird, Richard, 1994. "Decentralizing infrastructure : for good or ill?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1258, The World Bank.
    4. Eloranta, Jari, 2004. "WARFARE AND WELFARE? Understanding 19th and 20th Century Central Government Spending," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 699, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Teng, Jimmy, 2012. "Military competition and size and composition of economy and government," MPRA Paper 37968, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Apr 2012.
    6. Clara E. Piano, 2022. "Autocratic family policy," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 233-253, June.
    7. Clara E. Piano, 2022. "The family and the state: a public choice perspective," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 383-405, September.

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