IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id2890.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quantifying Spatial Mislocation in Centrally Provided Public Goods

Author

Listed:
  • Rohini Somanathan
  • Siva Athreya

Abstract

In this paper they show how an optimization algorithm can be used to approximately quantify the costs to users of spatial misallocation in centrally provided public goods. This method can be employed to evaluate the large programs of public good construction that have been central features of economic plans in many developing countries. They apply these methods to the allocation of post-offices in an administrative block of South India between1981-1991and find that more appropriate choices for post office locations could have reduced aggregate costs of travel to citizens in this area by at least20%. [Working Paper No. 148]

Suggested Citation

  • Rohini Somanathan & Siva Athreya, 2010. "Quantifying Spatial Mislocation in Centrally Provided Public Goods," Working Papers id:2890, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2890
    Note: Institutional Papers
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.esocialsciences.org/Download/repecDownload.aspx?fname=Document12392010552.495974E-02.pdf&fcategory=Articles&AId=2890&fref=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    2. Banerjee, Abhijit & Somanathan, Rohini, 2007. "The political economy of public goods: Some evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 287-314, March.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1243-1284.
    4. Khwaja, Asim Ijaz, 2001. "Can Good Projects Succeed in Bad Communities? Collective Action in the Himalayas," Working Paper Series rwp01-043, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Knight, Brian, 2004. "Parochial interests and the centralized provision of local public goods: evidence from congressional voting on transportation projects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 845-866, March.
    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. Fredriksson, Anders, 2017. "Location-allocation of public services – Citizen access, transparency and measurement. A method and evidence from Brazil and Sweden," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-12.
    2. Guilhem Cassan, 2015. "Identity-Based Policies and Identity Manipulation: Evidence from Colonial Punjab," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 103-131, November.

    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. Athreya, Siva & Somanathan, Rohini, 2008. "Quantifying spatial misallocation in centrally provided public goods," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 201-206, February.
    2. Elizabeth Kaletski & Nishith Prakash, 2017. "Can Elected Minority Representatives Affect Health Worker Visits? Evidence from India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 67-102, February.
    3. Chaudhary, Latika, 2010. "Taxation and educational development: Evidence from British India," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 279-293, July.
    4. Egel, Daniel, 2013. "Tribal heterogeneity and the allocation of publicly provided goods: Evidence from Yemen," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 228-232.
    5. Joseph Flavian Gomes, 2020. "The health costs of ethnic distance: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 195-226, June.
    6. Bharathi, Naveen & Malghan, Deepak & Mishra, Sumit & Rahman, Andaleeb, 2022. "Public Goods and Nested Subnational Units: Diversity, Segregation, and Hierarchy," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322471, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Arnaud Chevalier & Benjamin Elsner & Andreas Lichter & Nico Pestel, 2018. "Immigrant Voters, Taxation and the Size of the Welfare State," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 994, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    8. Melissa Dell & Benjamin A Olken, 2020. "The Development Effects of the Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System in Java," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 164-203.
    9. Zhang, Zhe & Zhang, Xu & Putterman, Louis, 2019. "Trust and cooperation at a confluence of worlds: An experiment in Xinjiang, China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 128-144.
    10. Urbain Thierry Yogo, 2015. "Ethnic Diversity and the Efficiency of Public Spending in Developing Countries," Working Papers halshs-01161599, HAL.
    11. Miguel, Edward A. & Gertler, Paul & Levine, David I., 2003. "Did Industrialization Destroy Social Capital in Indonesia?," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt9kt2m860, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    12. Banerjee, Abhijit V. & Pande, Rohini, 2007. "Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption," Working Paper Series rwp07-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    13. Catherine Bros, 2009. "Social Fragmentation and Public Goods Revisiting the Olson's Effect in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 09058, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    14. Guilhem Cassan & Lore Vandewalle, 2017. "Identities and Public Policies: Unintended Effects of Political Reservations for Women in India," IHEID Working Papers 18-2017, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    15. Rui Esteves & Kris James Mitchener & Peter Nencka & Melissa A. Thomasson, 2022. "Do Pandemics Change Healthcare? Evidence from the Great Influenza," NBER Working Papers 30643, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Kartik Misra, 2019. "Accumulation by Dispossession and Electoral Democracies : An Analysis of Land Acquisition for Special Economic Zones in India," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2019-16, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    17. Kumar Das, Pranab & Kar, Saibal & Kayal, Madhumanti, 2011. "Religious Minorities and Provision of Public Goods: Evidence from Rural West Bengal," IZA Discussion Papers 6154, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Das, Sabyasachi & Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop & Saroy, Rajas, 2023. "Does affirmative action in politics hinder performance? Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 370-405.
    19. Raouf Boucekkine & Rodolphe Desbordes & Paolo Melindi-Ghidi, 2019. "Particularism, dominant minorities and institutional change," Working Papers hal-02317663, HAL.
    20. Zhang, Zhijian & Wang, Xueyuan, 2022. "Birthplace diversity and private giving: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    optimization; algorithm; approximately; quantify; misallocation; spatial; public good; construction; developing countries; travel; citizens;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ess:wpaper:id:2890. 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: Padma Prakash (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.esocialsciences.org .

    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.