Availability Of Public Goods Research Articles

Economic benefits and the geographic aspect of business behaviour

PurposeWhile existing research confirms that hazardous locations increase fear and decrease entrepreneurial intentions, there is only limited knowledge on why and how business managers decide to invest in flood-prone areas to create economic benefits. The purpose of this paper is to employ location and protection motivation theories as complementary lenses for this investigation.Design/methodology/approachData were purposively collected from ten businesses. Then, using MAXQDA 2018 software programme for qualitative data, a systematic content analysis was carried out to draw empirical insights from the selected cases.FindingsConsistent with both location and protection motivation theories, research findings show that strategic location, proximity to supporting and related businesses, availability of public goods, lack of alternative locations and proximity to social services are the key drivers related to location decisions. Furthermore, the economic benefits gained from flood-prone areas overshadow the adverse impact of floods, compelling business managers to apply structural and non-structural strategies to overcome flood risks.Originality/valueThis is a pioneering phenomenon-based research contributing to the understanding of the geographic aspect of business behaviour by explaining why and how business managers decide to invest in flood-prone instead of safer areas. It differs from previous studies by building on the overlooked complementarities between location theory and protection motivation theory in explaining the economic benefits accruing from flood-prone areas. Finally, the study calls for business managers and policy advisers to safely align the use of flood-prone areas with income-generating activities.

I Perceive Therefore I Demand: The Formation of Inequality Perceptions and Demand for Redistribution

This paper shows that perceptions of inequality matter for demand for redistribution and investigates how individuals form their perceptions. Using data from the ISSP, we present new evidence on the significant changes of perceptions of inequality for more than 20 countries during the last three decades and how these are not in synch with changes in objective inequality. Rather than indicating misperceptions, these discrepancies reflect a broader view of inequality that for most individuals encompasses poverty, insecurity in the labor markets, availability of public goods in addition to objective income disparities. We then show that these perceptions have much stronger correlation with demand for redistribution than objective inequality, or any of the mentioned contextual variables that mold perceptions. Ideology and self‐interest also contribute to demand for redistribution. Much more than those on the left, right‐leaning individuals adjust their demand for redistribution in line with their inequality perceptions.

Giants and midgets: The effect of public goods provision on urban population concentration

This paper analyses explains population distribution within a system of cities with availability of public goods in the country and provides an explanation for the existence of urban giants in developing economies. The article argues that (1) differences in public goods provision cause disproportionate population growth of the primate cities; (2) better provision of public goods at the national level decreases the difference between growth rates of the primate agglomeration and the hinterland; (3) low provision of public goods at the national level leads to the emergence of urban giants. These findings are especially relevant for developing countries, where rapid urbanisation is currently taking place.

A Duplicitous Revolution? Maoistss Armed Conflict and Public Goods Provisioning in Rural India

The Maoists claim that they are fighting for the cause of the rural poor languishing under extreme poverty and impoverish conditions – a claim also acknowledged by the expert committee of Indian Planning Commission (2008). On the other hand, the government of India dubs the Maoists revolution as duplicitous. According to them, the armed struggle is doing more harm than good to the rural poor. We examine the influence of Maoists armed struggle ideology on the availability of public goods (access to education, health, water, roads, bus services, communication facilities) in rural India. Using district-level data (151 districts) on public goods from six states under Maoists influence, we find that districts with high intensity of conflict have lower access to these public goods. Our results contradict the Maoists armed struggle ideology as a way forward. In fact, the opposite seems to be true, supporting those who argue that welfare spending with decent governance, not armed struggle, can improve access to public goods.

Public Goods and Public Services - The Process of Building Social Capital in Rural Areas

The paper deals with the process of building social capital as constrained by the availability of public and private The purpose is to show that social capital shapes, both in positive and negative terms, the capacity of local institutions to support development projects and strategies. The analysis assumes that a higher level of social capital gives to communities a stronger planning capacity; a lower level of social capital implies that new initiatives are implemented only if they give private individual benefits; a higher level of social capital generates actions that increase and improve social capital itself.The first section outlines the logical links between the concept of social capital and the availability of services. Social capital is here seen as a public good. Section 2 focuses on the relationship between the supply of public services and the level of social capital. Evidence from the welfare system in Southern Tuscany shows that public transfers fail in reducing territorial and social marginality, while people ask for more support in terms of Section 3 compares the Italian case with other cases in Northern Europe.The concluding section shows the relationship between marginality and the availability of public goods. It contributes to the analysis of the relationship between social capital and development, showing that there is both a theoretical framework and evidence that justify the principle that public action supporting social capital has a major role in determining the performance of development strategies and actions.

The Global Digital Divide as Impeded Access to Content

The paper seeks a re-conceptualization of the global digital divide debate. It critically explores the predominant notion, its evolution and measurement, as well as the policies that have been advanced to bridge the digital divide. Acknowledging the complexity of this inequality, the paper aims at analyzing the disparities beyond the connectivity and the skills barriers. Without understating the first two digital divides, it is argued that as the Internet becomes more sophisticated and more integrated into economic, social and cultural processes, a ‘third’ generation of divides becomes critical. These divides are drawn not at the entry to the net but within the net itself, and limit access to content. The increasing barriers to content, although of diverse nature, all relate to some governance characteristics inherent in cyberspace, such as global spillover of local decisions, regulation through code or proliferation of self- and co-regulatory models. It is maintained that as the practice of intervention intensifies in cyberspace, multiple and far-reaching points of control outside formal legal institutions are created, which threaten the availability of public goods and make the pursuit of public objectives difficult. This is an aspect that is rarely addressed in the global digital divide discussions, even in comprehensive analysis and political initiatives such as the World Summit on the Information Society. Yet, the conceptualization of the digital divide as impeded access to content may be key in terms of ensuring real participation and catering for the long-term implications of digital technologies.

Who Rides the Storm? Political Institutions and Trade Adjustment

Both policymakers and scholars have expressed concern that trade has increased inequality in advanced industrialized countries (AICs). We argue that the impact of trade on inequality depends on the availability of public goods, such as educational opportunities, that allow displaced workers to upgrade their skills and adjust to trade. The provision of public goods, in turn, depends on political institutions: institutions that unify budgetary powers promote public-good spending while institutions that separate budgetary powers discourage it. Trade should thus increase inequality more (reduce inequality less) in countries with a high separation of budgetary powers. We test and find support for these hypotheses with a cross-sectional time-series analysis of fourteen AICs. Our results imply that trade can improve aggregate welfare without worsening economic inequities, but only if governments adopt complementary policies that facilitate human capital formation and labor-market adjustment.

Alternative measures of output in global economic–environmental models: Purchasing power parity or market exchange rates? — Comment

Nordhaus [Nordhaus, W. 2006, Alternative measures of output in global economic–environmental models: purchasing power parity or market exchange rates? Energy Economics, doi 10.1016/j.eneco.2006.02.003] examines the question of the use of purchasing power parity versus market exchange rates in constructing global economic models. He concludes that the best approach is to use PPP measures for relative incomes and outputs and national accounts' prices and quantity indexes for time series extrapolations. In this comment we argue and show that international real income comparisons based on PPP measures overstate the real incomes of poorer countries and underestimate the real incomes of richer regions. This is the case because the PPP approach fails to account for the differences in various non-traded attributes, such as availability of public goods and the location, attached to the final sale of the goods being compared. Additionally, using a teleporting consumer model we show that the use of real exchange rates to convert real quantities and the use of market exchange rates to convert nominal incomes preserve real income rankings across nations and this approach is consistent with standard economic theory.

History, Social Divisions, and Public Goods in Rural India

We examine the influence of three historically important sources of social divisions on the availability of public goods in rural India: colonial power, landowner-peasant relations as determined by the land tenure system and social fragmentation based on the Hindu caste system and the presence of sizable religious minorities. Using data on public goods from 1991, we find that regions that were under British colonial power in the pre-independence period and those where agrarian power was concentrated in the hands of landlords have lower access to these goods as do areas with high levels of social fragmentation.

Challenges and Limitations of the Market

Abstract The past decades have shown a shift of paradigm from governments as the main engine of rural development to markets and private initiative. Broad-based growth and better functioning markets are the main hope for the 800 million poor people living in rural areas. Reliance on government services only has proved to be inadequate. Sole reliance on private initiative and markets only is also deficient, given the many market failures, in particular those faced by the poor, and short-comings in availability of public goods. Therefore, without an effective pro-poor strategy for the private sector in rural development, the efforts in poverty reduction will doubtless be ineffective.

Interjurisdictional redistribution and public goods with increasing returns to scale

This paper builds upon probabilistic voting theory to examine vote maximizing interjurisdictional redistribution with increasing returns to scale in the production of regional public goods. We find that with interregional differences in the per capita cost of public goods, the vote maximizing interregional redistribution will seem incoherent and unfair when judged on the basis of the availability of public goods or regional incomes.