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Toward an Efficiency Rationale for the Public Provision of Private Goods

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Author Info
Hanming Fang
Peter Norman

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Abstract

This paper shows that public provision of private goods may be justified on pure efficiency grounds in an environment where individuals consume both public and private goods. The government's involvement in the provision of private goods provides it with information about individuals' private good purchases that facilitates more efficient revenue extraction for the provision of public goods. We show that public provision of the private good improves economic efficiency under a condition that is always fulfilled under stochastic independence and satisfied for an open set of joint distributions. Our model is an example where there is efficiency loss from separating revenue and expenditure problems in public finance, and is therefore of more general interest for the study of optimal taxation.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13827.

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Date of creation: Feb 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13827

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods

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  1. Blomquist, Sören & Christiansen, Vidar, 2007. "Public Provision of Private Goods and Nondistortionary Marginal Tax Rates," Working Paper Series 2007:7, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Gouveia, Miguel, 1997. " Majority Rule and the Public Provision of a Private Good," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 93(3-4), pages 221-44, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Firouz Gahvari & Enlinson Mattos, 2007. "Conditional Cash Transfers, Public Provision of Private Goods, and Income Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 491-502, March. [Downloadable!]
  5. Hanming Fang & Peter Norman, 2008. "Optimal Provision of Multiple Excludable Public Goods," NBER Working Papers 13797, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Schmitz, Patrick W., 1997. "Monopolistic Provision of Excludable Public Goods under Private Information," MPRA Paper 6549, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  7. Bruce, Neil & Waldman, Michael, 1991. "Transfers in Kind: Why They Can Be Efficient and Nonpaternalistic," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1345-51, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Fernandez, Raquel & Rogerson, Richard, 1995. "On the Political Economy of Education Subsidies," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 62(2), pages 249-62, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Blomquist, Soren & Christiansen, Vidar, 1999. "The political economy of publicly provided private goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 31-54, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Peter Norman, 2004. "Efficient Mechanisms for Public Goods with Use Exclusions," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 71(4), pages 1163-1188, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Adams, William James & Yellen, Janet L, 1976. "Commodity Bundling and the Burden of Monopoly," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 475-98, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Garratt, Rod & Marshall, John M, 1994. "Public Finance of Private Goods: The Case of College Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(3), pages 566-82, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1988. "Cash versus Kind, Self-selection, and Efficient Transfers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 691-700, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Bergstrom, Ted & Blomquist, Soren, 1996. "The political economy of subsidized day care," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 443-457, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. McAfee, R Preston & McMillan, John & Whinston, Michael D, 1989. "Multiproduct Monopoly, Commodity Bundling, and Correlation of Values," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 104(2), pages 371-83, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Stokey, Nancy L, 1979. "Intertemporal Price Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 355-71, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Mailath, George J & Postlewaite, Andrew, 1990. "Asymmetric Information Bargaining Problems with Many Agents," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(3), pages 351-67, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Boadway, Robin & Marchand, Maurice & Sato, Motohiro, 1998. " Subsidies versus Public Provision of Private Goods as Instruments for Redistribution," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 100(3), pages 545-64, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Roberts, John, 1976. "The incentives for correct revelation of preferences and the number of consumers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 359-374, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Cremer, Helmuth & Gahvari, Firouz, 1997. "In-kind transfers, self-selection and optimal tax policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 97-114, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Nichols, Albert L & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1982. "Targeting Transfers through Restrictions on Recipients," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 372-77, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Blomquist, Suren & Christiansen, Vidar, 1995. " Public Provision of Private Goods as a Redistributive Device in an Optimum Income Tax Model," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 97(4), pages 547-67, December.
  23. Martin F. Hellwig, 2003. "Public-Good Provision with Many Participants," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 70(3), pages 589-614, 07. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Tilman Börgers & Peter Norman, 2005. "A Note on Budget Balance under Interim Participation Constraints: The Case of Independent Types," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000171, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  25. Riley, John & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1983. "Optimal Selling Strategies: When to Haggle, When to Hold Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 267-89, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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