Efficiency of Public Goods Provision in Space

Arbeitspapier

This article incorporates a political decision process into an urban land use model to predict the likely location of a public good. It fills an important gap in the literature by modeling the endogenous location of open space. The article compares open space decisions made under a majority-rules voting scheme with welfare-improving criterion and finds households tied to a location in space compete against each other for public goods located nearer them. Significant differences emerge between the two decision criteria, indicating that requiring referenda for open space decisions is likely to lead to inefficient outcomes. Specifically, many open space votes are likely to fail that would lead to welfare improvements, and any open space decisions that do pass will require amenities larger than needed to achieve the social optimum. The more dispersed and large the population, the larger is the gap between the socially efficient level and the level needed for a public referendum to pass.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Discussion Paper Series ; No. 483

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights ; Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior: Other ; Business Administration: General
• Subject: organizational slack ; antecedents ; dispositional requirements ; resources ; Öffentliche Güter ; Regionalökonomik ; Landnutzung ; Referendum ; Abstimmungsregel ; Theorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Warziniack, Travis
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics
• (where): Heidelberg
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/127302
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET