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Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Political Economy Of Subsidized Day Care, Ted Bergstrom, Soren Blomquist
The Political Economy Of Subsidized Day Care, Ted Bergstrom, Soren Blomquist
Ted C Bergstrom
This paper presents a theoretical model of political support for public provision of day care. In an economy where there are high taxes on wage income, selfish taxpayers with no children in the day care system may favor substantial public subsidies to day care because such subsidies induce mothers to join the labor force and hence pay income tax. Our model makes explicit quantitative predictions of the relation between the distribution of wages, theincome tax rate, and the subsidy rate for day care that maximizes net tax revenue from parents of small children. Applying parameter values from Sweden and the …
Soldiers Of Fortune, Ted Bergstrom
Soldiers Of Fortune, Ted Bergstrom
Ted C Bergstrom
This paper shows that if workers have identical wealths, abilities, and preferences then a draft lottery is Pareto superior to a voluntary army. It also shows that if being a civilian is a "normal good", then the optimal pay schedule will be such that people prefer not being chosen for the army. The paper shows how this idea extends to occupational choice in general and shows that pure gambles taken prior to occupational choice can substitute for lotteries that determine one's occupation. This paper repairs what I think is a major flaw in standard general equilibrium theory, which assumes away …
On The Private Provision Of Public Goods, Ted Bergstrom, Hal Varian, Larry Blume
On The Private Provision Of Public Goods, Ted Bergstrom, Hal Varian, Larry Blume
Ted C Bergstrom
We consider a general model of the non-cooperative provision of a public good. Under very weak assumptions there will always exist a unique Nash equilibrium in our model. A smallredistribution of wealth among the contributing consumers will not change the equilibrium amount of the public good. However, larger redistributions of wealth will change the set of contributors and thereby change the equilibrium provision of the public good. We are able to characterize the properties and the comparative statics of the equilibrium in a quite complete way and to analyze the extent to which government provision of a public good ‘crowds …
Independence Of Allocative Efficiency From Distribution In The Theory Of Public Goods, Ted Bergstrom, Richard Cornes
Independence Of Allocative Efficiency From Distribution In The Theory Of Public Goods, Ted Bergstrom, Richard Cornes
Ted C Bergstrom
When is the Pareto optimal amount of public goods independent of income distribution? Subject to some regularity conditions, the answer is when preferences of every individual i can be represented by a utility function of the form U(X_i,Y)=A(Y)X_i+B_i(Y) where X_i is i's consumption of private goods and Y is the amount of public goods.
Counting Groves-Ledyard Equilibria Via Degree Theory, Ted Bergstrom, Carl Simon, Charles Titus
Counting Groves-Ledyard Equilibria Via Degree Theory, Ted Bergstrom, Carl Simon, Charles Titus
Ted C Bergstrom
A Nash equilibria of the Groves-Ledyard mechanism is Pareto optimal. But this may not be much use if there are many distinct Nash equilibria, since it is not clear that the mechanism would converge on any one of them. This paper shows that if preferences are quasi-linear, the Groves-Ledyard mechanism has a unique Nash equilibrium, but even in the simplest class of preferences in which demands for public goods are affected by incomes, the number of equilibria increases exponentially with the number of consumers. The paper makes use of some pretty mathematics and even sports a drawing of Whitney's umbrella.
When Is A Man's Life Worth More Than His Human Capital?, Ted Bergstrom
When Is A Man's Life Worth More Than His Human Capital?, Ted Bergstrom
Ted C Bergstrom
This paper develops a "subjectivist" theory of the value that individuals place on risks to their lives. It explains the paradox that although individuals may view their lives as priceless, they still will take small risks for a finite amount of money. Typical public projects that alter risks to life result in small changes in survival probability for a large number of people. Standard tools of benefit cost can therefore be applied, where statistical lives saved are valued at a price equal to the marginal rate of substitution between survival probability and wealth. This "value" is compared to human capital …
Gorman And Musgrave Are Dual: An Antipodean Theorem On Public Goods, Ted Bergstrom, Richard Cornes
Gorman And Musgrave Are Dual: An Antipodean Theorem On Public Goods, Ted Bergstrom, Richard Cornes
Ted C Bergstrom
This paper finds the conditions under which an allocation branch can determine the efficient amount of public goods to produce, independently of the distribution of private goods. The result is similar to that found in our Econometrica paper, but uses a quite different method--solving a differential equation.
When Does Majority Rule Supply Public Goods Efficiently?, Ted Bergstrom
When Does Majority Rule Supply Public Goods Efficiently?, Ted Bergstrom
Ted C Bergstrom
H.R. Bowen showed that if voters have equal tax shares and if marginal rates of substitution are symmetrically distributed, then majority voting leads to efficient provision of public goods. These conditions are not likely to apply in a community with asymmetric income distribution. This paper defines a new idea for public goods allocation, a "pseudo-Lindahl equilibrium" which combines majority voting with tax rates that depend on income and other observable characteristices in such a way that the majority rule outcome is Pareto optimal for an interesting class of societies. The informational requirements for implementing pseudo-Lindahl are much less stringent than …
Collective Choice And The Lindahl Allocation Method, Ted Bergstrom
Collective Choice And The Lindahl Allocation Method, Ted Bergstrom
Ted C Bergstrom
This paper contains a proof of the existence of Lindahl equilibrium in a very general model of externalities, public goods, and non-selfish preferences. The trick in this paper is to treat all goods as pure public goods, with private goods and their competitive prices treated as special cases induced by special structure within the public goods, Lindahl framework.
On Efficient Provision Of Social Overhead Goods, Ted Bergstrom
On Efficient Provision Of Social Overhead Goods, Ted Bergstrom
Ted C Bergstrom
This paper was my attempt to build a theory of "public factors of production" such as scientific knowledge and to see whether there is any way that Arrow-Debreu general equilibrium theory can cope with the nonconvexities that arise. I propose that the economy might be partitioned into provision of "social overhead goods" and ordinary goods in such a way that given the quantities of social overhead goods, the remaining activities satisfy the assumptions needed for the existence of competitive equilibrium. I proposed and examined a notion of "Lindahl-Hotelling equilibrium" in which individuals were assigned Lindahl prices for the social overhead …