A utilitarian approach to the provision and pricing of excludable public goods

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hellwig, MF
• 署名单位: Max Planck Society
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.12.006
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 1981-2003
• 关键词: public-good provision; admission fees for excludable public goods; utilitarian welfare maximization

摘要

This paper studies utilitarian welfare maximization in a large economy with an excludable public good where individual preferences are private information. If inequality aversion is large, optimal allocations involve the use of admission fees and exclusion to redistribute resources from people who benefit a lot from the public good to people who benefit little. If inequality aversion is close to zero, optimal admission fees are zero. Because of inequality aversion, information rents of people who benefit a lot from the public good receive less weight, so optimal provision levels for the public good are below first-best levels. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.