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Non-Optimal Levels Of Suburbanization, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

Suburbanization has many causes, among which is the attempt to relocate to acquire a more desirable vector of local public goods. The traditional economists' procedure for valuing public goods involves vertical aggregation of marginal willingness to pay, at a given income level. This approach is flawed by failing to recognize that individuals will not work for goods that cannot be acquired individually with higher incomes. There will be a parallel input market failure any time there is a public good output market failure, thus the `given income' of the traditional valuation method is too low. Hence, traditional valuation methods result …