Economics Dictionary of Arguments

Home Screenshot Tabelle Begriffe

 
Collective goods: Collective goods, or public goods, in economics are goods that are non-excludable and non-rivalrous, meaning they can be used by everyone without reducing availability to others.. These goods often require government provision or regulation due to challenges in private market supply and free-rider issues. See also Free-rider, Non-rivalty.
_____________
Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Charles M. Tiebout on Collective Goods - Dictionary of Arguments

Rothbard III 1032
Collective goods/Tiebout/Rothbard: Many attempts have been made (…), to salvage the concept of the "collective" good, to provide a seemingly ironclad, scientific justification for government operations.
Tiebout: Charles M. Tiebout(1), conceding that there is no "pure" way to establish an optimum level for government expenditures, tries to salvage such a theory specifically for local government. Realizing that the taxing, and even voting, process precludes voluntary demonstration of consumer choice in the governmental field, he argues that decentralization and freedom of internal migration renders local government expenditures more or less optimal - as we can say that free market expenditures by firms are "optimal"—since the residents can move in and out as they please. Certainly, it is true that the consumer will be better off if he can move readily out of a high-tax, and into a Iow tax, community. But this helps the consumer only to a degree; it does not solve the problem of government expenditures, which remains otherwise the same. There are, indeed, other factors than government entering into a man's choice of residence, and enough People may be attached to a certain geographical area, for one reason or another, to permit a great deal of government depredation before they move. Furthermore, a major problem is that the world's total land area is fixed, and that governments have universally pre-empted all the land and thus universally burden consumers.(1)
>Collective goods/Rothbard
, >Social goods.

1. Charles M. Tiebout, "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, October, 1956, pp. 416 - 24. At one point, Tiebout seems to admit that his theory would be valid only if each person could somehow be "his own municipal government." Ibid., p. 421.
In the course of an acute critique of the idea of competition in government, the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph wrote as follows: „Were the taxpayer free to act as a customer, buying only those services he deemed useful to himself and which were priced within his reach, then this competition between governments would be a wonderful thing. But because the taxpayer is not a customer, but only the governed, he is not free to choose. He is only compelled to pay.... With government there is no producer-customer relationship. There is only the relation that always exists between those who rule and those who are ruled. The ruled are never free to refuse the services of the products of the ruler.... Instead of trying to see which government could best serve the governed, each government began to vie with every other government on the basis of its tax collections.... The victim of this competition is always the taxpayer.... The taxpayer is now set upon by the federal, state, school board, county and City governments. Each of these is competing for the last dollar he has.“ (Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, July 16, 1958)

_____________
Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Tiebout I
Charles M. Tiebout
The community economic base study New York 1962

Rothbard II
Murray N. Rothbard
Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995

Rothbard III
Murray N. Rothbard
Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009

Rothbard IV
Murray N. Rothbard
The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988

Rothbard V
Murray N. Rothbard
Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977


Send Link
> Counter arguments against Tiebout
> Counter arguments in relation to Collective Goods

Authors A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z  


Concepts A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z