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Public Choice and Public Goods

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© 2003 South-Western/Thomson Learning

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Introduction

In most of our previous discussions, we have been talking about private goods

Private goods have two important features

They are rival in consumption the amount consumed by one person is unavailable for others to consumeThey are exclusive suppliers can easily exclude those who don’t pay

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Public GoodsPublic goods, such as national defense, the Center for Disease Control, or a neighborhood mosquito-control program are

Nonrival in consumption one person’s consumption does not diminish the amount available to others once produced, such goods are available to all in equal amount the marginal cost of providing the good to additional consumers is zeroOnce a public good is produced, suppliers cannot easily deny it to those who fail to pay it is nonexclusive

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Public Goods

Because they are nonrival and nonexclusive, for-profit firms cannot profitably sell public goods

In this case of market failure, government can improve the situation by providing public goods and paying for them through enforced taxation

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Classification of Goods

An economy consists of more than just private and public goods

Some goods are nonrival but exclusive

For example, additional households can watch a TV show without affecting the TV reception of other viewers

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Classification of GoodsAlong the same lines, short of the point of congestion, additional people can benefit from a golf course, swimming pools, and so onThese goods, when not congested, are non rival, yet producers can, with relative ease, exclude those who don’t pay the greens fees, pool admission, etc.Once congestion sets in, these quasi-public goods become private goods

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Classification of GoodsSome other goods are rival but nonexclusiveThe fish in the ocean are rival in the sense that once caught they are not available for others to catch are rivalHowever, these goods are nonexclusive in the sense that it would be costly or impossible for a private firm to prevent access to these goods open-access goods Exhibit 1 offers a matrix for all goods

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Exhibit 1: Categories of Private and Public Goods

Rival Nonrival

Exclusive

Nonexclusive

1.Private Goods

—pizza

—crowdedswimmingpool

3.Open-Access Goods

—ocean fish

—migratory birds

4.Public Goods

—national defense

—mosquito control

2.Quasi-Public Goods

—Cable TV

—uncrowdedswimming pool

Across the top, goods are either rival or nonrival. Down the left, goods are either exclusive or nonexclusive.

Open-access goods are usually regulated by government, and public goods are usually provided by government.

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Optimal Provision of Public Goods

Because private goods are rival in consumption, the market demand for a private good is the sum of the quantities demanded by each consumer horizontal sum of all individual demand curves

The efficient quantity of a private good occurs where the market demand curve intersects the market supply curve

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Optimal Provision of Public Goods

But since a public good is nonrival in consumption, the good, once produced, is available to all consumers in an identical amountTherefore, the market demand curve for a public good is the vertical sum of each consumer’s demand for the public goodTo arrive at the efficient level of the public good, we find where the market demand curve intersects the marginal cost curve

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Optimal Provision of Public Goods

Suppose the public good in question is mosquito control in a neighborhood, which, or simplicity, consists of only two houses

One is headed by Alan and the other by Maria

Alan spends a lot of time in the yard, thus values a mosquito-free environment more than does Maria

Exhibit 2 shows their demand curves

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Exhibit 2: Market for Public Goods

Da and Dm are the respective demand curves reflecting the marginal benefits that Alan and Maria, respectively, enjoy at each rate of output.

How much mosquito spraying should the government provide? Suppose the marginal cost of spraying is a constant $15 an hour. The efficient level of output is found where the marginal benefit to the neighborhood equals the marginal cost 2 hours per week.

Hours of mosquito sprayingper week

0

Dm

D

D

5

2

eMarginal

cost

10

$15

Do

lla

rs p

er

ho

ur

Da

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Optimal Provision of Public GoodsThe government pays for the mosquito spray through taxes, user fees, or some combination of the two

The efficient approach would be to impose a tax on each resident equal to his or her marginal valuation. There are, however, two problems with this

Once people realize their taxes are based on how much the government thinks they value the good, people tend to understate their true valuation

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Optimal Provision of Public GoodsWhy admit you really value the good if, as a result, you get a higher tax bill?•Taxpayers are reluctant to offer this information, creating what is called the free-rider problem•The free-rider problem occurs because people try to benefit from a public good without paying for it•For example, all will benefit from the mosquito abatement program, whether they pay or not

Even if the government had accurate information about marginal valuations, some households earn much more than others a greater ability to pay taxes•Taxing people according to their marginal valuations may be efficient, but it may not be considered fair or equitable

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Public Choice in Representative Democracy

Government decisions about the provision of public goods and the collection of tax revenues are public choices

In a democracy, public choices usually require approval by a majority of voters

We can frequently explain the choice of the electorate with majority rule by focusing on the preferences of the median voter

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Median-Voter ModelThe median voter is the one whose preferences lie in the middle of the set of all voters’ preferences

The median-voter model predicts that under certain circumstances, the preference of the median, or middle voter will dominate other choices

To see the logic of this, consider the following situation

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Median-Voter ModelSuppose we have three individuals who are trying to decide whether to buy a TV and, if so, of what size

The problem is that each of the individuals have different preferences

Suppose we let N = no TV, S = small TV, and L = large TV, and p preferredPerson 1: N p S p LPerson 2: L p S p NPerson 3: S p L p N

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Median-Voter ModelAll agree to make the decision by voting on two alternatives at a time, then pairing the winner against the remaining alternative until one dominates the otherWhen the small set is paired against the no-TV option, the small set wins by getting the vote of individuals 2 and 3Then when the small set is paired against the large TV it also wins because individuals 1 and 3 approve

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Median-Voter ModelPerson 3, the median voter in this case, gets his most preferred choice

In fact, even if person 3 had preferred the large TV, he would have gotten his choice

This same principle often holds in public choices political candidates try to get elected by appealing to the median voter

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Median-Voter ModelThis is one reason why candidates often seem so much alike

Other voters are required to go along with what the median voter wants

Thus other voters usually end up paying for what they consider to be either too much or too little of the public good welfare cost of public goods

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Public ChoicesRather than make decisions by direct referenda, voters elect representatives

In theory, these representatives make public choices that reflect their constituents’ views

Under certain conditions, the resulting public choices reflect the preferences of the median voter

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Special Interest and Rational Ignorance

What do governments attempt to maximize?There is no common agreement about what governments maximize or, more precisely, what elected officials maximize, if anythingOne theory that parallels the rational self-interest assumption employed in private choices is that elected officials attempt to maximize their political support

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Special Interest and Rational Ignorance

It is possible that elected representatives will cater to special interests rather than serve the interests of the majority

The problem arises because of the asymmetry between special interests and the public interest

Consider only one of the thousands of decisions that are made by elected representatives: funding wool production

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Special Interest and Rational Ignorance

Under the wool-subsidy program, the federal government guarantees that a floor price to sheep farmers that costs taxpayers over $75 million per yearThe only person the testify before Congress in support of this program was a representative of the National Wool Growers Association, who claimed that the subsidy was vital to the nation’s economic welfareWhy didn’t single taxpayer challenge the subsidy?

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Special Interest and Rational Ignorance

Households consume so many different public and private goods and services that they have neither the time nor the incentive to understand the effects of public choices on every one of those products

What’s more, voters realize that each of them has only a tiny possibility of influencing the outcome of public choices

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Special Interest and Rational Ignorance

Finally, even if an individual voter is somehow able to affect the outcome, the impact on that voter is likely to be small

For example, in the case of the wool subsidy, the average taxpayer would save less than 60 cents per year in federal income taxes

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Special Interest and Rational Ignorance

Therefore, unless voters have a special interest in the legislation, they adopt a stance of rational ignorance

Rational ignorance that they remain largely oblivious to the costs and benefits of the thousands of proposals considered by elected officials

The cost to the typical voter of acquiring and acting on such information is usually greater than any expected benefits

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Special Interest and Rational Ignorance

In contrast, consumers have more incentive to gather and act on information about decisions they make in private markets because they benefit directly from such information

Since information and the time required to acquire and digest it are scarce, consumers concentrate on private choices rather than public choices because the payoff in making wise private choices is usually more immediate, direct, and substantial

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Distribution of Costs and Benefits

The possible combinations of benefits and costs yield four categories of distributions

Widespread benefits and widespread costsConcentrated benefits and widespread costsWidespread benefits and concentrated costsConcentrated costs and concentrated benefits

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Distribution of Costs and Benefits

Traditional public-goods legislationWidespread benefits and widespread costs nearly everyone benefits and nearly everyone paysUsually has a positive impact on the economy because total benefits exceed total costs

Special-interest legislationBenefits are concentrated but costs widespreadProgram’s costs are spread across nearly all consumers and taxpayersGenerally harms the economy, on net, because total costs often exceed total benefits

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Distribution of Costs and BenefitsPopulist legislation

Widespread benefits but concentrated costsUsually has a tough time getting approved because the widespread group that benefits typically remains rationally ignorant of the proposed legislation voters provide little political supportThe concentrated group adversely affected will object strenuouslyTort reform is one example that would benefit the economy as a whole by limiting product liability.However trial lawyers, the group most harmed by such limits, have blocked passage

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Distribution of Costs and Benefits

Competing-interest legislationInvolves both concentrated benefits and costsExample: relative market position of Microsoft versus AOL

Exhibit 3 arrays the four categories of distributions

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Exhibit 3: Categories of Legislation

Widespread Concentrated

1. Traditional Public Goods - National Defense

2. Special Interest - Farm Subsidies

3. Populist - Tort Reform

4. Competing Interest - Labor Union Issues

Widespread

Concentrated

Distribution of Benefits

Dis

trib

uti

on o

f C

osts

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Rent SeekingAn important feature of representative democracy is the incentive and political power it offers participants to employ legislation that increases their wealth

either through direct transfers or through favorable public expenditures and regulations

Special-interest groups try to persuade elected officials to approve measures that provide special interest with some market advantage or outright transfer or subsidy

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Rent SeekingSuch benefits are sometimes called rents

The term in this context means that the government transfer or subsidy constitutes a payment to the resource owner that exceeds the earnings necessary to call forth that resource payment exceeding opportunity cost

The activity that interest groups undertake to elicit these special favors from government is called rent-seeking

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Rent Seeking

The government frequently bestows some special advantage on a producer group or group of producers, and abundant resources are expended to secure these rights

Political action committees, PACs, contribute millions to congressional campaigns

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Rent SeekingTo the extent that special-interest groups engage in rent-seeking, they shift resources from productive endeavors that create output and income to activities that focus more on transferring income to the special interest

Resources employed to persuade government to redistribute income and wealth are unproductive because they do nothing to increase output and usually end up reducing it

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Rent Seeking

Often firms compete for the same government advantage, thereby wasting still more resources

If the advantage conferred by government on some special-interest group requires higher income taxes, the net return individuals expect from working and investing will fall they may work and invest less

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Rent SeekingAs a firm’s profitability becomes more and more dependent on decisions made in Washington, resources are diverted from productive activity to rent seeking, or lobbying efforts, to gain special advantage

Special-interest groups have little incentive to make the economy more efficient

In fact, they will usually support legislation that transfers wealth to them even if overall efficiency declines

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Rent SeekingThink of the economy’s output in a particular period as a pie where the pie represents the total value of goods and services produced

In answering the “what,” “how,” and “for whom” questions policy makers have three alternatives

They can introduce changes that increase the size of the pie positive sum game

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Rent Seeking

They can decide simply to carve up the existing pie differently redistribute income

They can start fighting over the how the pie is carved up, causing some of it to end up on the floor negative sum game

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Underground Economy

It is reasonably accurate to say that when government taxes productive activity, less production gets reported

The underground economy is a term used for all market activity that goes unreported to the government to either avoid taxes or because the activity itself is illegal

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Underground Economy

The introduction of a tax on productive activity has two effects

First, resource owners may supply less of the taxed resource since the after-tax wage declines

Second, to evade taxes, some people will shift from the formal, reported economy to an underground, “off-the-books” economy

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Underground Economy

Must distinguish betweenTax avoidance: a legal attempt to arrange one’s economic affairs so as to pay the least possible tax• Example: buying municipal bonds because

they yield tax-free interest

Tax evasion : illegal• Takes the form of either failing to file a tax

return or filing a fraudulent return by understating income or overstating deductions

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Underground EconomyResearch around the world indicates that the underground economy grows more when

Government regulations increaseThe tax rate increasesGovernment corruption is more widespread

U.S. Commerce Department estimates that official figures capture only 90% of U.S. income while the Internal Revenue Service estimates only 87% of taxable income gets reported

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Summary

Those who pursue rent-seeking activities and those involved in the underground economy view government from opposite sides

Rent seekers want government to become actively involved in transferring wealth to themThose in the underground economy want to avoid government contact

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Bureaucracy

Elected representatives approve legislation

However, the task of implementing that legislation is typically left to bureaus

Bureaus are government departments and agencies whose activities are financed by appropriations from legislative bodies

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Ownership and Funding of Bureaus

Taxpayers are in a sense the “owners” of government bureaus in the jurisdiction in which they live

If the bureau earns a “profit,” taxes may decline; if it operates at a “loss,” as most do, this loss must be covered by taxes

Each taxpayer has just one vote, regardless of the taxes paid and ownership is not transferable

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Ownership and Funding of Bureaus

Bureaus are typically financed by a budget appropriation from the legislature which comes from taxpayers

Becomes of the differences in the forms of ownership and in the sources of revenue, bureaus have different incentives than do for-profit firms they are likely to behave differently

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Ownership and BehaviorA central assumption of economics is that people behave rationally and respond to economic incentives

The more closely compensation is linked to individual incentives, the more people will behave in accordance with those incentives

A private firm receives a steady stream of consumer feedback

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Ownership and BehaviorIf the price is too high or too low to clear the market, surpluses or shortages will become obvious

Not only is consumer feedback abundant, but the firm’s owners have a profit incentive to act on that information to satisfy consumer wants

The promise of profits also creates incentives to minimize costs

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Ownership and BehaviorSince public goods and services are not sold in markets, government bureaus receive less consumer feedback and have less incentive to act on any feedback they do receive

There are usually no prices and no obvious shortages or surpluses

They also have less incentive to act on the information available

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Ownership and BehaviorBecause any “profits” or “losses” arising in the bureau are spread among all taxpayers, and because there is no transferability of ownership, bureaus have less incentive to satisfy customers or to produce their output using the least-cost combination of resources

Some pressure may be communicated by voters to their elected representatives and thereby to bureaus. However, even this is not very precise

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Ownership and Behavior

Voters can leave a jurisdiction if they believe government is inefficientThis mechanism, whereby people “vote with their feet,” does promote some efficiency and consumer satisfaction at the state and local levelHowever, voters dissatisfied with the biggest spender, the federal government, cannot easily vote with their feet

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Bureaucratic ObjectivesWhat sort of objectives will bureaus pursue?

The traditional view is that bureaucrats are “public servants,” who try to serve the public the best they can

Is this a realistic assumption for bureaucrats in a general sense that is, why should we assume self-sacrificing behavior by public sector employees?

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Bureaucratic ObjectivesOne widely discussed theory of bureaucratic behavior claims that bureaus try to maximize the bureau’s budget

According to this view, bureaus are monopoly suppliers of their output to the legislature

Rather than charge a price per unit, bureaus offer the legislature the entire amount as a package deal in return for the requested appropriation

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Bureaucratic ObjectivesThe legislature has only limited ability to dig into the budget and cut particular items

If the legislature does try to cut the bureau’s budget, the bureau will threaten to make those cuts as painful to the legislature and constituents as possible

Budget maximization results in a larger budget than that desired by the median voter

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Private versus Public Production

Simply because some goods and services are financed by the government does not mean that they must be produced by the government

Profit-making firms now provide everything from fire protection to prisons in certain jurisdictions

Elected officials may also use some combination of bureaus and firms to produce the desired output

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Private versus Public Production

The trend is toward increased privatization production by the private sector of government provided goods and services

When governments produce public goods and services, they are using the internal organization of the government – the bureaucracy – to supply the product as opposed to using the market

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Private versus Public ProductionLegislators might prefer dealing with bureaus rather than firms for two reasons

In situations where it is difficult to specify a contract that clearly spells out all the possible contingencies, the internal organization of the bureau may be more responsive to the legislature’s concerns than the manager of a firm would beBureaus provide legislators with opportunities to reward friends and supporters with government jobs