1996 Reports
Mixing Government with Voluntaryism
The provision of public goods by voluntary contributions alone is feasible but the outcome is suboptimal. This paper examines the potential for government supplementation of the voluntary contribution system in order to retain the basic features but improve the outcome. it is shown that attempted supplementation through taxes or subsidies either has no effect or does actual harm. In general, a pure voluntary system or a complete government override is superior to a government-voluntary mix. The supporting propositions, both old and new, are derived from a simple unified treatment of the voluntary contribution system in a variety of contexts.
Subjects
Files
- econ_9596_034.pdf application/pdf 1.43 MB Download File
More About This Work
- Academic Units
- Economics
- Publisher
- Department of Economics, Columbia University
- Series
- Department of Economics Discussion Papers, 9596-34
- Published Here
- March 3, 2011
Notes
August 1996