IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/ecinqu/v28y1990i4p788-812.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America

Author

Listed:
  • Klein, Daniel B

Abstract

The turnpike companies of early America (roughly 1795-1840) were very unprofitable, but conferred vast benefits to communities served. Purchasing stock was like paying for the road since such purchases were necessary to complete the road and unprofitability was foreseen. Thus, the turnpikes would appear to have been public goods. Yet, hundreds of turnpikes were provided through voluntary association. The free rider problem was overcome by an almost vigilant impulse to participate and to see that your neighbor did likewise. Copyright 1990 by Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Klein, Daniel B, 1990. "The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(4), pages 788-812, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ecinqu:v:28:y:1990:i:4:p:788-812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Social Interactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1063-1093, Nov.-Dec..
    2. Brubaker, Earl R, 1975. "Free Ride, Free Revelation, or Golden Rule?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 147-161, April.
    3. Coase, R H, 1974. "The Lighthouse in Economics," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 357-376, October.
    4. Seavoy, Ronald E., 1978. "The Public Service Origins of the American Business Corporation," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(01), pages 30-60, March.
    5. Bohm, Peter, 1972. "Estimating demand for public goods: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 111-130.
    6. Dawes, Robyn M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "Anomalies: Cooperation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 187-197, Summer.
    7. Peter Bohm, 1972. "Estimating the demand for public goods: An experiment," Framed Field Experiments 00126, The Field Experiments Website.
    8. Marwell, Gerald & Ames, Ruth E., 1981. "Economists free ride, does anyone else? : Experiments on the provision of public goods, IV," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 295-310, June.
    9. Sugden, Robert, 1984. "Reciprocity: The Supply of Public Goods through Voluntary Contributions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376), pages 772-787, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shilony, Yuval, 2000. "Diversity and ingenuity in voluntary collective action," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 429-443, September.
    2. repec:spr:grdene:v:23:y:2014:i:5:d:10.1007_s10726-013-9342-x is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Klein, Daniel B. & Yin, Chi, 1994. "The Private Provision of Frontier Infrastructure: Toll Roads in California, 1850-1902," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt3bc2s8vk, University of California Transportation Center.
    4. Laurent Carnis, 2013. "The provision of lighthouses services: a political economy perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 51-56, October.
    5. Dan Bogart, 2012. "Profiting from Public Works: Financial Returns to Infrastructure and Investment Strategies during Britain's Industrial Revolution," Working Papers 121304, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    6. Mark Koyama, 2012. "Prosecution Associations in Industrial Revolution England: Private Providers of Public Goods?," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 95-130.
    7. Sarah Jacobson & Ragan Petrie, 2014. "Favor trading in public good provision," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(3), pages 439-460, September.
    8. Dan Bogart, 2009. "Turnpike trusts and property income: new evidence on the effects of transport improvements and legislation in eighteenth-century England -super-1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(1), pages 128-152, February.
    9. Carnis Laurent, 2014. "The Political Economy of Lighthouses: Some Further Considerations," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 143-165, December.
    10. repec:bla:ajecsc:v:76:y:2017:i:5:p:1107-1132 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Bryan Caplan & Edward Stringham, 2003. "Networks, Law, and the Paradox of Cooperation," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 16(4), pages 309-326, December.
    12. Block Walter, 1998. "Roads, Bridges, Sunlight and Private Property: Reply to Tullock," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2-3), pages 1-12, June.
    13. Carnis Laurent, 2003. "The Case for Road Privatization: a Defense by Restitution," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-24, March.
    14. Dan Bogart & John Majewski, 2008. "Two Roads to the Transportation Revolution: Early Corporations in the United Kingdom and the United States," NBER Chapters,in: Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth: Geography, Institutions, and the Knowledge Economy, pages 177-204 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Levinson, David, 1997. "Case Study: Road Pricing In Practice," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt0w06s4n2, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    16. repec:eee:juipol:v:50:y:2018:i:c:p:83-90 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. David Levinson, 2001. "Road Pricing in Practice," Working Papers 199903, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    18. Gabriel García Morales, 2011. "Opportunistic renegotiation of infrastructure concessions as rent seeking: the effect of legal systems Gabriel Garcia Morales," REVISTA ECONOMÍA & REGIÓN, UNIVERSIDAD TECNOLÓGICA DE BOLÍVAR, March.
    19. Fielding, Gordon J. & Klein, Daniel B., 1993. "How To Franchise Highways," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt79z9x6fs, University of California Transportation Center.

    More about this item

    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:oup:ecinqu:v:28:y:1990:i:4:p:788-812. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Oxford University Press) or (Christopher F. Baum). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.