Public goods and private communities.

摘要

The prevalent theory of public goods is that of market failure: agents in a market system do not produce the public goods that people desire because a typical consumer benefits whether or not he contributes to its funding. But since some community goods are in fact produced by private agents, it is open to question whether such a failure to produce public goods would be due to institutional rather than market factors.;This dissertation examines the theory of the provision of public goods by agents in voluntary and market processes. An examination of the theories centered on the models of Paul Samuelson and Charles Tiebout concludes that much of this literature omits the spatial aspect of public goods. Territorial public goods induce an added demand for the associated space, hence a greater economic rent and land value than would occur without the goods. This extra rent constitutes a private tie-in to the public goods as well as a revelation of demand, thereby providing the basis for the private provision of the goods. The prevailing theory of public goods also overlooks private governance, such as residential community associations, which provide governance in ways similar to local governments, but with a contractual relationship among the members.;The thesis examines four major case studies: Walt Disney World, Arden village, Fort Ellsworth condominium, and Reston association. In each case, the hypothesis that free riders and a lack of demand revelation hinder the provision of public goods is rejected.;Other contributions of the thesis include a definition of public goods that overcomes some of the theoretical ambiguities of the concept, a model of a territorial club, and an examination of Adam Smith's theory of sympathy for insights into the provision of non-excludable public goods.;Besides the fields of public economics and public finance, this dissertation has relevance to the fields of urban economics, privatization, public choice, the theory of clubs, industrial organization, and constitutional economics.