A Comment on The Role of Prices for Excludable Public Goods / Gilbert E. Metcalf, Jongsang Park.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Metcalf, Gilbert E.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Park, Jongsang.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w12535.

NBER working paper series no. w12535

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2006.

Summary:

Blomquist and Christensen (2005) argue that welfare is initially decreasing in the price of an excludable public good and that the case for a positive price for an excludable public good price is weak. We argue that this result follows from their particular characterization of the public good and that an alternative and equally reasonable characterization overturns their result. Hence the policy case for a positive price on the public good is stronger than Blomquist and Christiansen suggest. We also provide a flexible characterization of public goods that nests a wide variety of public goods models.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2006.