The Tiebout Model at Fifty: Essays in Public Economics in Honor of Wallace Oates

摘要

In the preface to this collection of essays celebrating the Tiebout model, William Fischel calls Charles Tiebout's 1956 paper "the most influential single article in the field of public economics" (p. ix). Yet a presentation of the Tiebout model in an undergraduate public economics course draws some incredulous looks. How can a model built on assumptions of costless mobility, full information regarding government expenditures and tax collections, a society living entirely on dividend income, and no spillovers between communities be so important? The essays and discussants' comments nicely establishes the breath of Tiebout scholarship, and shows how the relaxation of some of the more restrictive assumptions has helped to make the Tiebout model more rather than less influential.