DECREASING THE 'BAD' FOR MIXED PUBLIC GOODS AND BADS: THE CASE OF PUBLIC SCULPTURE

摘要

A standard analysis in public economics involves the provision of a public good, and how much of that good it is desirable to provide. A related standard analysis considers the problem of regulating a public bad, such as pollution. What is not usually considered is a class of public products that are both public goods and public bads: products that produce positive utility for some, and negative utility for others "forced" to experience them. Some might argue that expenditures on national defense sometimes fit this characterization; others might see the reintroduction of wolf populations into US national parks as fitting it. Whatever one's reaction to these possible examples, however, it seems clear, as we will argue below, that the example of controversial public sculpture does fit the mixed public good-public bad characterization. This paper considers the following issue: when confronted with a mixed public good/public bad, what are the "economic design" options for decreasing the negative utility generated relative to the positive utility produced? Or, to state the issue more flamboyantly, are there ways to help insure that public goods are not also serious public bads? Because it is both difficult and seemingly unrewarding to tackle this economic design question in the abstract, we apply our analysis to the concrete example of controversial public sculpture. The later part of this paper sets forth some instructive specific controversies involving the provision of public sculpture in the United States. First, we present a simple public goods-bads framework that helps us analyze the economic design issues that arise in the controversial public sculpture setting.