Investment In Public Goods Research Articles

The role of cost-effectiveness in multisector climate investment programs: The Swedish Climate Leap

To increase the speed of implementation of carbon mitigation technologies, many countries set up publicly funded investment programs, where private and/or public entities can apply for support. These schemes are often criticized for not being cost-effective. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Swedish Climate Leap Program, which differs from most other programs through the multisector approach. We examine determinants of project approval and evaluate the heterogeneity in implicit carbon pricing across sectors. Several econometric methods are used to assess equality in carbon pricing. Results show that although the cost-effectiveness ratio plays an important role in project approval, carbon pricing differs significantly across project types. Project guidelines favor charging stations and transport measures that aid in adopting new technology and reaching economies of scale. However, the preference for transport measures is not reflected in the carbon pricing while instead energy conversion measures have a higher probability of being funded given the cost-effectiveness of the investment. Funding decisions favor densely populated municipalities, which could be motivated for investments in public goods, but is questionable for transport and housing.

Effectively Utilizing Infrastructure to Achieve Economic and Societal Growth in Developing Countries

Developing countries can benefit economically and socially from the construction of infrastructure. However, poor policy decisions regarding investment in public goods and services often impede infrastructure’s effectiveness in achieving such benefits. This paper seeks to provide a coherent framework for developing countries to consider when planning and implementing infrastructure projects. Gathering insights and policy suggestions from various relevant studies, it proposes three factors necessary for developing countries to consider. These three factors emphasize individual quality of life and long-term development instead of simple short-term economic growth described by basic economic indicators. They also account for the social and environmental concerns or implications of infrastructure construction, often overlooked in many policy agendas. The first factor is the efficiency of expenditure and accessibility of infrastructure, achieved through the consideration of diminishing returns to scale for capital investment and an emphasis on the delivery, not just the provision, of public services; the second is resilience and sustainability in the context of local environmental attributes and regional independence during the decision-making process; the third is the maximization of indirect benefits, most notably the increases in human capital and productivity caused by infrastructure construction.

Will the poverty‐related UN Sustainable Development Goals be met? New projections

AbstractIn this paper, we discuss the literature and consider the historical relationship between growth and a set of poverty‐related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically extreme monetary poverty, undernutrition, stunting, child mortality, maternal mortality and access to clean water. We then make projections for 2030. We find that it is very likely that global poverty‐related SDGs will not be met and by a considerable distance. The implication of this, we argue, is that more emphasis is needed on both policies to raise growth rates (i.e., build productive capacities) and distributive policy measures such as the introduction or expansion of income transfers, and ensuring investments in public goods are sufficient.

A Farewell to Arms: Paramilitaries Demobilization, Political Competition and Public Goods in Colombia

Scholars have highlighted how local elites can use their de facto power to capture democracy. This makes electoral competition particularly vulnerable in armed conflicts driven by politics. Would a reduction in politically motivated violence perpetrated by local elites promote electoral competition? To investigate this, I employ a synthetic difference-in-differences strategy within the setting of Colombia’s demobilization of paramilitaries, who were heavily connected with local elites across the country. Following demobilization, I observe an increase in competition. I show that this improvement in competition is consistent with a decrease in repressive violence, leading to an increased likelihood of electoral candidacy for parties that would have potentially been victims of violence in the absence of demobilization. However, I also find that parties associated with elites increased their electoral presence, showing an effort to compensate for the loss produced by demobilization. Finally, I present evidence that public goods investment in territories previously controlled by paramilitaries undergoes a transformation, now benefiting a broader sector of the population, which I argue is partly explained by the increased competition.

The impact of national savings on economic development: a focused study on the ten poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of national savings on economic development, as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), Inequality-adjusted HDI (iHDI), and Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), in ten of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study employs a sequential Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) analysis to address potential endogeneity issues and account for the dynamic nature of the relationships, covering the period from 2009 to 2019. The findings reveal a complex relationship between national savings and the selected development indicators. While national savings exhibit positive impacts on HDI and iHDI, the results are not consistently statistically significant across all the sequential models. However, the analysis suggests that national savings have a positive influence on reducing multidimensional poverty, as measured by MPI, particularly when effectively channeled into productive investments. The study also highlights the significant positive impact of government expenditure and foreign direct investment (FDI) on human development, underscoring the importance of strategic public investments and foreign capital. The results suggest that while national savings are crucial, their effective utilization is essential for enhancing human development indices. Strategic investments in public goods and foreign capital are also important. The mixed effects of inflation and official development assistance (ODA) emphasize the need for stable economic policies and effective utilization of foreign aid. The modest positive impact of institutional quality suggests that improvements in governance and institutional frameworks can contribute to human development. The findings underscore the need for policies promoting financial inclusion, efficient public expenditure, foreign direct investment, and stable macroeconomic conditions to leverage national savings for economic development. The study’s findings provide valuable insights for policymakers in Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the need for comprehensive strategies that leverage national savings, public expenditure, and foreign investment to drive sustainable economic development and poverty reduction.

Insights From Implementation Of A Community-Based Model For Collaborative Public Good Investing.

Communities across the United States are looking for ways to reduce health inequities. Improving the social determinants of health (SDOH) is one fruitful pathway. In prior work we developed a financing model to incentivize and coordinate joint SDOH investments among local stakeholders, called the Collaborative Approach to Public Good Investments (CAPGI). A core thesis of our model is that at least some SDOH investments can be funded without reliance on philanthropic or government monies: Because they can produce value that flows to multiple organizations simultaneously, SDOH investments can be aligned with health organizations' self-interest. We describe our model's evolution in practice and synthesize insights drawn from our experiences providing technical assistance to three communities that have implemented CAPGI. Each community is unique, but we identified common themes related to governance processes and coalition dynamics that are relevant to any community trying to increase local, place-based investments in health.

Collateralized Marriage

Marriage rates have become increasingly stratified by homeownership. We investigate this in a household model where investments in public goods reduce future earnings and, thus, divorce risk creates inefficiencies. Access to a joint savings technology, like a house, collateralizes marriage, providing insurance to the lower-earning partner and increasing specialization, public goods, and value from marriage. We use idiosyncratic variation in housing prices to show that homeownership access indeed leads to greater specialization. The model also predicts that policies that erode the marriage contract in other ways will make wealth a more important determinant of marriage, which we confirm empirically. (JEL D12, D86, G51, H41, J12, R31)

Does Community-Based Adaptation Enhance Social Capital? Evidence from Senegal and Mali

Climate change and extreme climate shocks pose a significant threat to resource-dependent rural communities. Successfully supporting households to anticipate and adapt to climate variability and shocks, as well as build long term climate resilience, is essential to facing these changes. Given the importance of social capital in facilitating collective action and adaptation, the development community has focused on bottom-up, participatory adaptation projects. This article explores the social capital impacts of a pilot community-based adaptation project in Senegal and Mali that aims to encourage inclusive decision making around public goods investments. The analysis uses both difference-in-differences and propensity score matching estimates to evaluate whether households that participated in the project realized enhanced social capital, as measured through participation in community development, and acts of reciprocity and community support. The findings indicate that engaging in the participatory process through the project increased the likelihood of future collective action and providing help to other community members in Mali.

Public goods games played on hypergraphs, by agents with bounded learning and planning

Public goods games between model agents with bounded rationality and a simple learning rule, which have been previously shown to represent experimentally observed human playing behavior, are studied by direct simulation on various lattices with different network topology. Despite strong coupling between playing groups, we find that average investments do not significantly depend upon network topology, but are determined solely by immediate local network environment. Furthermore, the dependence of investments on characteristic agent parameters factorizes into a function of individual cognitive budget, K, and a simple function 1/(1+c(0)/β), where c(0) is the group centrality and β=12.5 for all networks investigated. Given the good agreement of agent behavior with available experiments, this seems to indicate that even complex societal networks of investment in public goods may be accessible to predictive simulation with limited effort.

Clientelism, Brokers Dominance, and Rigged Election: A Process of Authoritarian Democracy in Bangladesh

It is often assumed that power is exerted through patron–client exchanges in Bangladesh. These patron–client relationships are dispersed and multifaceted, kept together by moral closeness and tenderness. The incumbent government of Bangladesh rigged the last 2014 and 2018 national elections through the clientelist process. In Bangladesh, clientelism has become an art form that encompasses a wide variety of illegal electoral strategies and crimes. Brokers have a crucial part to play in this process because they are responsible for controlling patron–client interactions. Even while clientelism is thought of as an investment in public goods for the underprivileged, it has been demonstrating severe democratic degradation causes in countries that are still in the process of creating their democracies. This study explores how clientelism, broker dominance, and particularly the patron–client situation led Bangladesh to transition from a two-party or multiparty democratic state to a one-party dominant state that is flavored with authoritarian democracy. It also demonstrates how this has led to the emergence of a society in which free and fair election is an illusion.

The IRA Is an Invitation to Organizers

The Inflation Reduction Act would not have happened without the movement for a Green New Deal, but it shouldn’t be confused for one. The climate left (broadly defined) now faces a novel problem: how to deal with having won something—and keep fighting for more. It’s understandably hard for those who supported Green New Deal proposals for transformative investments in public goods to see the IRA—a bundle of tax credits whose benefits accrue largely to corporations—as a consolation prize. For the many climate hawks galvanized by Bernie Sanders’s bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020, it’s also a far cry from what, for a moment, looked to be within striking distance: governing power.

Las redes de trabajo en la acción pública. Tipología y caracterización a partir de quince programas públicos en Chile

As a result of a series of modernization processes, the Chilean State has implemented a group of management and governance mechanisms, among which public-private partnerships or alliances stand out. Inspired by efficiency-oriented approaches from New Public Management and democratic principles of New Governance, neither their socio-technical configuration nor their effects on the transformation of the work activity in public action have been explored. Based on the qualitative study of fifteen public programs operating through networks established by public-private partnerships (PPNetworks) in Chile, a typology and characterization of these networks is proposed. The results reveal four types of PPNetworks that organize the work activity in public action: networks for investment in public goods, networks for the delivery of social services, associative networks of public interest, and networks to subsidize projects. Each of these networks is organized based on a fundamental principle that establishes coordination mechanisms through a set of governance and management instruments, from which private state actors and citizens are called to action and positioned within the network. It is discussed how these networks attribute forms of involvement to the actors involved, thereby questioning them and shaping subjective dispositions in public work.

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND THE ROLE OF THE STATE: NURTURING COLLECTIVES FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION

AbstractFor eradication of acute poverty, it is vital to factor in the human experience of it. Building social capital and networks that nurture, empower, and consistently reinforce a new shared economic identity can provide rich socioeconomic dividends. For states tackling extreme poverty at scale, building and strengthening social capital are essential public goods investments.

State regulation and support of agriculture in the Republic of Kazakhstan

State regulation and support of the agricultural sector is a complex and evolving network of government interventions in production markets, resource markets, trade, investment in public goods, renewable and depletable natural resources, regulation of externalities, and marketing and distribution of food products. The purpose of this article is to formulate a conceptual vision of agricultural development and state regulation of the agrarian sector of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This article presents 5 sections, which will reflect views on the main directions of the agrarian sector in the economy of Kazakhstan: 1) main microeconomic indicators; 2) financing of the agricultural sector; 3) support of agriculture; 4) main policy instruments; 5) recent changes in policy; 6) conceptual vision of agricultural development. The object of the research in this article is the agro-industrial complex of Kazakhstan. The paper assesses the main indicators of development of the agroindustrial complex, evaluates the state financial support, analyzes the current state of livestock, fish farming, crop production. The work uses a systematic approach to the selection of data, methods of quantitative and qualitative study of reality, methods of economic, statistical and comparative analysis as a methodological tool for solving problems. The analytical part of the paper is based on the official statistical data on agriculture, published on the website of the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the World Bank, OECD data. The authors believe that political and economic achievements shed light on the conditions under which future welfare-enhancing agricultural and food policy reforms may be feasible.

Exploring adaptive capacity: Observations from the vulnerable human-coastal environmental system of the Bay of Bengal in India

This article presents the factors that help build the adaptive capacity of individuals to reduce vulnerability from natural threats. The findings are based on primary data on individuals engaged in various livelihood practices in the Digha-Sankarpur- Mandarmoni region along the eastern coastline of the Bay of Bengal in India. Coastal communities have their individual perceptions about their vulnerability to natural threats and associated risks to various assets. Based on perception survey responses, “adaptive capacity” is measured and the determining factors are analyzed with an aim to provide policy guidelines for strengthening the adaptive capacity of people dependent on coastal ecosystem-based livelihoods. Findings show that income security for individuals in coastal systems can be achieved through a livelihood diversification strategy. The scope for individuals to build personal savings, have access to financial institutions, and engage in collaborative actions with immediate neighbors in the community help to prevent multiple losses at the individual level aids in their adaptive capacity. Government actions to provide institutional and governance support and incentives to promote livelihood diversification and personal savings would enhance adaptive capacity through institutional actions. Public investment in public goods and services, including protection and monitoring of natural coastal ecosystems, infrastructure development, technological intervention, providing access to information, and community empowerment, have important roles to play in enhancing adaptive capacity.

The effect of flood experience on public preferences for land preservation: evidence from referendum votes

In response to losses of open space, local open space referenda have become a popular means for land preservation in the U.S. This study is the first to empirically examine the relationship between flood experience and voter support for open space referenda. We collect data on open space referenda between 2001 to 2015 from the Trust for Public Land’s (TPL) LandVote database. Flood occurrence and damage data are derived from the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS) database. Our findings suggest that voters become less supportive of subsequent open space ballot measures if their communities recently experienced a flood event. Our preferred specification indicates that a flood would decrease the odds of a ‘yes’ vote by about 7.5%. If we use flood damage data to measure disaster impacts, our results show that a 10% increase in flood damage is expected to decrease the odds of a ‘yes’ vote by about 6%. These findings are consistent with recent experimental research showing that disaster exposure has a negative effect on preferences for local public good investments.

The Promise and Limitations of Information Technology for Tax Mobilization

Abstract Tax revenue in many low- and middle-income countries is inadequate for funding investments in public goods and human capital. With high levels of informality and limited state capacity, many tax authorities have difficulty determining the true tax base and collecting taxes efficiently and equitably. Tax authorities are increasingly adopting new technologies to improve administrative processes, reduce taxpayer compliance costs, and enhance their overall effectiveness. This paper reviews the recent literature on the use of technology for tax administration. It highlights the potential of technology to improve tax collection by helping to identify the tax base, monitor compliance, and facilitate compliance. It also identifies possible limitations to the use of technology arising from inadequate infrastructure and connectivity, lack of adoption or resistance by taxpayers and tax collectors, lack of institutional mainstreaming, and an unsupportive regulatory environment.

Investment in the Common Good: Free Rider Effect and the Stability of Mixed Strategy Equilibria

The free rider problem is widely observed in investments in the common good. For example, if Best Buy offers corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, such as recycling, tech training, and supplier audit, at its own expense, other firms in the industry can benefit from these programs at no cost (i.e., they become the free riders). Such a free rider effect often manifests itself as a mixed strategy equilibrium, in which potential investors unnecessarily delay their investments. The article “Investment in the common good: Free rider effect and the stability of mixed strategy equilibria” finds that recurring investment opportunities can be a major driver of delays in investment in the common good. It also shows that sufficient heterogeneity in investment cost among potential investors can alleviate the free rider effect. Therefore, the policy makers may try to facilitate investments in public goods (e.g., CSR activities) through some form of selective benefits to potential investors.

Citizen response to local service provision: Emerging democratic accountability in decentralized West Africa?

A central tenet of democratic theory is that the threat of electoral sanction holds politicians accountable to citizen preferences. But do voters who receive social service investments evaluate the state more positively and does this translate into electoral rewards for incumbents? I examine this question in decentralized Senegal, where locally elected governments are responsible for providing basic social services. Pairing village-level data on local service delivery with local electoral results and public opinion surveys, I present evidence that receiving new public goods investments does improve citizen evaluations of their local governments, but that voters are more likely to reward incumbent mayors than they are incumbent parties. I argue that this is a rational strategy for voters in new democracies with weak party institutionalization and suggests that party systems are an important scope condition for how voters try to hold their governments accountable in emerging democracies.

On the Character and Causes of Inequality in Latin America

On the Character and Causes of Inequality in Latin America