Production Of Public Goods Research Articles

Experimental evolution of yeast shows that public-goods upregulation can evolve despite challenges from exploitative non-producers

Microbial secretions, such as metabolic enzymes, are often considered to be cooperative public goods as they are costly to produce but can be exploited by others. They create incentives for the evolution of non-producers, which can drive producer and population productivity declines. In response, producers can adjust production levels. Past studies suggest that while producers lower production to reduce costs and exploitation opportunities when under strong selection pressure from non-producers, they overproduce secretions when these pressures are weak. We challenge the universality of this trend with the production of a metabolic enzyme, invertase, by Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which catalyses sucrose hydrolysis into two hexose molecules. Contrary to past studies, overproducers evolve during evolutionary experiments even when under strong selection pressure from non-producers. Phenotypic and competition assays with a collection of synthetic strains - engineered to have modified metabolic attributes - identify two mechanisms for suppressing the benefits of invertase to those who exploit it. Invertase overproduction increases extracellular hexose concentrations that suppresses the metabolic efficiency of competitors, due to the rate-efficiency trade-off, and also enhances overproducers’ hexose capture rate by inducing transporter expression. Thus, overproducers are maintained in the environment originally thought to not support public goods production.

Актуализация подходов к определению устойчивости и сбалансированности развития экономической системы региона

The article reveals a theoretical approach to the determination of the stability and balance of the development of regional economic systems, considering the specified classification of factors influencing these processes, examines various approaches to the determination of the stability and balance of the economic system development of the region, and discusses the importance of these approaches, each of which contributes to the determination of the stability and balance of the economic system development of the region. The author presents the interpretation of the regional economic system as a mesoeconomical system and an integrity formed by industrial relations between economic agents regarding the production, distribution, and consumption of public goods within the spatial and territorial boundaries of the region. Production relations are dynamic and changeable because of the influence of common factors caused by the action of basic economic laws, which are typical of economic systems of any scale. A group of special factors that have a dominant effect on the dynamics of industrial relations in modern conditions is suggested, i.e., natural-geographical, ethno-confessional, socio-economic, and socio-cultural ones. These factors determine the stability and balance of economic systems’ development in the regions in the national economic division of labor. The results obtained determine the author’s theoretical and methodological approach to determining the stability and balance of the development of economic systems in certain regions of the Russian Federation, such as the Kaliningrad Region, the Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol, Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Murmansk Region, the Republics of Kalmykia, Buryatia, Tyva, and Altai, taking into account the specific factors of the prevailing realities and challenges of the future. The results also provide a better understanding of the problem areas and the potential for subsequent planning and development of policies and activities in order to stimulate sustainable and balanced development of the economic system of the region.

The Main Theories of the Provision of Public Goods: History and Modernity

The article discusses the history and modern theories of public goods provision, which are a key aspect of the socio-economic system of states. Public goods, such as defense, free education, street lighting, and others, are distinguished by the fact that their consumption is available to all members of society at the same time and they do not compete with each other. It is determined that in the 19th century, with the emergence of new economic and social theories, new approaches to the provision of public goods emerged. Researchers such as Schaeffe and Pigou made a significant contribution to understanding the role of the state in this process by considering public goods in the context of the public and private sectors of the economy. It is noted that in the second half of the 19th century, as well as in the 20th century, new theories emerged that became important for understanding the production and distribution of public goods. The key attention is focused on the study of the history and modernity of theories of public goods provision, as well as their application in modern conditions. In general, the article highlights the significance of the historical development of the theory of public goods and its impact on modern economic and political practice, emphasizing the need for continuous development and adaptation of this theory to the changing conditions of society. A comparative analysis of the scientific literature of different conceptual views and approaches to the problem of public goods provision and their distribution is presented.

When population growth intensifies intergroup competition, female colobus monkeys free-ride less

Intergroup aggression often results in the production of public goods, such as a safe and stable social environment and a home range containing the resources required to survive and reproduce. We investigate temporal variation in intergroup aggression in a growing population of colobus monkeys (Colobus vellerosus) to ask a novel question: “Who stepped-up to produce these public goods when doing so became more difficult?”. Both whole-group encounters and male incursions occurred more frequently as the population grew. Males and females were both more likely to participate in whole-group encounters when monopolizable food resources were available, indicating both sexes engaged in food defence. However, only females increasingly did so as the population grew, suggesting that it was females who increasingly produced the public good of home range defence as intergroup competition intensified. Females were also more active in male incursions at high population densities, suggesting they increasingly produced the public good of a safe and stable social environment. This is not to say that males were chronic free-riders when it came to maintaining public goods. Males consistently participated in the majority of intergroup interactions throughout the study period, indicating they may have lacked the capacity to invest more time and effort.

Putting theory to the test: An integrated computational/experimental chemostat model of the tragedy of the commons.

Cooperation via shared public goods is ubiquitous in nature, however, noncontributing social cheaters can exploit the public goods provided by cooperating individuals to gain a fitness advantage. Theory predicts that this dynamic can cause a Tragedy of the Commons, and in particular, a 'Collapsing' Tragedy defined as the extinction of the entire population if the public good is essential. However, there is little empirical evidence of the Collapsing Tragedy in evolutionary biology. Here, we experimentally demonstrate this outcome in a microbial model system, the public good-producing bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa grown in a continuous-culture chemostat. In a growth medium that requires extracellular protein digestion, we find that P. aeruginosa populations maintain a high density when entirely composed of cooperating, protease-producing cells but completely collapse when non-producing cheater cells are introduced. We formulate a mechanistic mathematical model that recapitulates experimental observations and suggests key parameters, such as the dilution rate and the cost of public good production, that define the stability of cooperative behavior. We combine model prediction with experimental validation to explain striking differences in the long-term cheater trajectories of replicate cocultures through mutational events that increase cheater fitness. Taken together, our integrated empirical and theoretical approach validates and parametrizes the Collapsing Tragedy in a microbial population, and provides a quantitative, mechanistic framework for generating testable predictions of social behavior.

Bureaucratic Quality and Electoral Accountability

In many theories of electoral accountability, voters learn about an incumbent’s quality by observing public goods outcomes. But empirical findings are mixed, suggesting that increasing the visibility of these outcomes only sometimes improves accountability. I reconcile these heterogeneous findings by highlighting bureaucrats’ role in the production of public goods. In a simple model of electoral accountability involving a voter, a politician, and a bureaucrat, I show that accountability relationships yield distinct empirical implications at different levels of bureaucratic quality. To illustrate how this model rationalizes otherwise mixed or heterogeneous results, I develop a new research design—a theoretically structured meta-study—to synthesize existing findings. Meta-study evidence on the accountability of Brazilian mayors suggests that a common model of electoral accountability that allows for variation in bureaucratic quality predicts observed heterogeneity in politician and voter behavior and beliefs across multiple studies with distinct samples, treatments, and outcomes.

Dimensions of the constitution

The article is devoted to the conceptualization of the dimensions of the constitution as an important direction of modern political and legal research. It was noted that the category “dimension” combines the objective determination of the influence of the constitution on the course of social relations with its utilitarian value.
 Given the complexity and multidimensionality of society, it can be argued that there can be many dimensions of the constitution. However, it is known that the constitution to one degree or another regulates (consolidates) all four subsystems of the social system: political, economic, social, and spiritual and cultural. Therefore, the most general, system-creating dimensions of the constitution can be only four - according to the number of subsystems of the social system. All of them can be covered by the term “general or general social dimensions”.
 The author claims that from a legal point of view, we should be primarily interested in those “internal” dimensions of the constitution that characterize the significance of the constitution for the state mechanism and the national legal system. They, again conditionally, can be called “special” or “legal”. The relevant criteria should be sufficiently universal and significant, capable of being applied to states of different levels of development and different historical eras. At the same time, it should be understood that the constitution is only a legal instrument, so it can neither be blamed for a bad political choice nor praised for a good one.
 In the broadest plan, five main legal criteria for the success of the constitution are proposed – these are its endurance (permanence), legitimacy, the ability to resolve political conflicts in a legal way, the ability to limit agency costs, as well as to promote the production of public goods.
 The opinion that according to the vast majority of the dimensions listed above, the current Constitution of Ukraine of 1996 demonstrates quite high results, being an example of a modern and effective Basic Law, is justified. The main problem facing the national Constitution in this regard is the problem of limiting the so-called “agency costs”, especially in the area of corruption prevention.

Fast and Curious: ‘The Swiss Development Puzzle’. The Institutional Roots of the Success of Industrialization

ABSTRACT The article investigates the institutional roots of the Swiss organized capitalism that contributed to the success of its industrialization and its subsequent economic growth during the second industrial revolution (1880–1913). Recent literature underlines the link between public and private actors and shows that the second industrial revolution in Switzerland owed its success to state-led organized capitalism. If the majority of studies analysed in detail one or more components of the Swiss organized capitalism, to our knowledge, there are no works seeking to explain the (institutional) construction of this organized capitalism by mobilizing a large number of factors in a single theoretical frame of reference. Using the Regulation Theory approach, this article sheds light on the institutional construction of the Swiss organized capitalism. We show that it rested on original institutional arrangements driven by the necessity to survive on external markets. We therefore demonstrate that these arrangements also enabled Switzerland to successfully deal with the production of essential public goods supporting both industrialization and national social bonds required to promote political unity.

The Constructive Black Queen hypothesis: new functions can evolve under conditions favouring gene loss.

Duplication is a major route for the emergence of new gene functions. However, the emergence of new gene functions via this route may be reduced in prokaryotes, as redundant genes are often rapidly purged. In lineages with compact, streamlined genomes, it thus appears challenging for novel function to emerge via duplication and divergence. A further pressure contributing to gene loss occurs under Black Queen dynamics, as cheaters that lose the capacity to produce a public good can instead acquire it from neighbouring producers. We propose that Black Queen dynamics can favour the emergence of new function because, under an emerging Black Queen dynamic, there is high gene redundancy spread across a community of interacting cells. Using computational modelling, we demonstrate that new gene functions can emerge under Black Queen dynamics. This result holds even if there is deletion bias due to low duplication rates and selection against redundant gene copies resulting from the high cost associated with carrying a locus. However, when the public good production costs are high, Black Queen dynamics impede the fixation of new functions. Our results expand the mechanisms by which new gene functions can emerge in prokaryotic systems.

Sources of synergy in the financial and environmental regulation of the state

At the present stage of the development of economic science, the identification of synergy in it involves the study of patterns occurring in the production relations of society involving the production of public goods using the productive forces of nature. All this presupposes the formation of some kind of social system of production. Thus, the economy allows humanity to find the most optimal way of its development. All this presupposes the identification of objective patterns in the process of economic development in a particular country as an economy. At the same time, we should not forget that within each individual country, as a separate economy, the same laws operate that are not different from the basic and general laws of the natural sciences, presupposing objective reality itself, despite the fact that each individual country is not without its own particular features of formation, formation and development, taking into account environmental processes.

Публичная история в городском пространстве: символический ресурс прошлого и культурный капитал

The article considers the role of public history in the development of modern city’s cultural capital. Public history is defined in terms of the peculiarities of its tools, which contribute to the involvement of the symbolic resource of the past in current cultural communications and the accumulation of cultural capital of urban local communi-ties. Cultural capital is understood not only in the context of assessing the city’s cultural resources, but also their involvement in the production of public goods and flows of communications and services. The development of cultural capital is described in the context of three interrelated aspects of urban space: practical, imaginary and lived. The necessity to actualize the symbolic resource of the past and its use in improving the quality of urban environment is caused by the increased competition of modern cities for the most active and qualified resi-dents.

Information-sharing and cooperation in networked collective action groups

Abstract When people provide for large-scale public goods, they often do not know what each individual group member is contributing. Instead, they commonly have access to the behaviors of their ties, in a broader network of others whose decisions are unknown. But network ties also serve as channels of communication, allowing behaviors to reach a larger audience. Here, we ask how public good production is affected in networks when people can share information about their ties’ behaviors with their other connections—and what behaviors they tend to share. We predict that networked collective action groups demonstrate higher levels of cooperation when their members can share information about their ties’ decisions with their other connections, compared with when they cannot. Informed by prior work, we consider two pathways by which information-sharing opportunities might shape cooperation in networked collective action groups: (i) as a means of coordinating one's own decisions with those of the larger group, including those to whom one is not directly tied, and (ii) as a reminder of possible reputational consequences for selfishness. Across two exploratory experiments (combined n = 7,014 contribution decisions, 49 groups), we demonstrate that opportunities to share information about others’ decisions promote public good production. The benefits occur even though people tend to share information about relatively selfish behaviors that, at first blush, might seem detrimental to cooperation. Our results build on prior work by showing that information-sharing prevents selfishness from becoming contagious by raising reputational concerns.

To cheat or not to cheat: cheatable and non-cheatable virulence factors in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Important bacterial pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa produce several exoproducts such as siderophores, degradative enzymes, biosurfactants and exopolysaccharides that are used extracellularly, benefiting all members of the population, hence being public goods. Since the production of public goods is a cooperative trait, it is in principle susceptible to cheating by individuals in the population who do not invest in their production, but use their benefits, hence increasing their fitness at the expense of the cooperators' fitness. Among the most studied virulence factors susceptible to cheating are siderophores and exoproteases, with several studies in vitro and some in animal infection models. In addition to these two well-known examples, cheating with other virulence factors such as exopolysaccharides, biosurfactants, eDNA production, secretion systems and biofilm formation has also been studied. In this review we discuss the evidence of the susceptibility of each of those virulence factors to cheating, as well as the mechanisms that counteract this behavior and the possible consequences for bacterial virulence.

Государство и иерархии: особенности взаимодействия в форме ГЧП

The participation of the state as an economic agent in the institutional structures that ensure the exchange of assets determines the specific features of their organization in the form of a public-private partnership (PPP). Within the framework of PPP, alternative forms of cooperation between the state and private business regard-ing the production of public goods are integrated: quasi-market organization, hierarchical and hybrid. The arti-cle is devoted to the analysis of the forms of organization of transactions based on PPP as an institutionaliza-tion of the possibilities of reducing transaction costs based on the exchange of property rights. The methodo-logical basis of the study was the main provisions and developments in the field of institutional economic theo-ry, the theory of property rights and the theory of public goods. The methods of work included a positive and normative analysis of the transactions of the hierarchical organization of private business and the state regard-ing the production of public goods. The analysis showed that the variety of PPP forms that implement this part-nership can be viewed as a function of changes in relative differences in the levels and structure of transaction costs. The results of the study contribute to the understanding of the specificity of the state’s position as an agency for the specification and protection of property rights within PPPs organized in the form of hierarchies.

Who Leads, Who Follows? Critical Review of the Field of Leadership Studies

Abstract This article surveys the field of leadership studies from its inception as ‘Great Man’ historical analysis strongly influenced by Thomas Carlyle and by Max Weber’s classic work on the concept of charisma in his theorizing of ‘authority’ within the modern bureaucratic state. Both approaches require careful deconstruction. The Weberian approach is still of relevance to the consideration of underlying political theories of leadership. The article surveys and reviews the formation of the field by reference to trait studies and leadership development and education before mentioning ‘School Leadership For Social Justice, Equity and Diversity’. The next section of the paper focuses on the contemporary paradigm of transformational leadership and the attendant notion of ‘the policy context’ of New Public Management and the Creative Economy as the defining context for creative leadership. The next two sections introduce the feminist critique of leadership studies and what has become known as ‘critical leadership studies’. Finally, the paper considers leadership in the twenty-first century by reference to three moments: (i) multipolarity and the production of global public goods; (ii) the biodigital future; and, (iii) the ecological-systems model of leadership. A brief postscript considers crisis leadership for post-apocalyptic survival.

The labor potential of rural areas of Kazakhstan in the context of digitalization of the economy

The goal is to reveal main directions for increasing the efficiency of labor potential of rural areas of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the context of digitalization of the economy, to identify criteria and analyze factors of its growth. Methods – comparative analysis and scientific abstraction, allowing to determine the importance of rural labor resources in production of public goods and increasing reproduction. Results – there is no general indicator that determines the activity of the personnel and conditions for its formation. According to the authors, the prerequisites for this are ecological-geographical, socio-economic, technological development and digital transformation. The priority areas of demographic policy and mechanisms for increasing employment and profitability of rural workers are given. The structure of the agricultural labor market is considered: the level of innovative activity of enterprises in the context of regions; the number of farmers users of the Internet system in different countries. Conclusions – information and communication systems in the economy have reduced the gap in the quality of education between rural and urban schools by more than 30%, and digital entrepreneurship also involves the creation of new enterprises characterized by: the use of digital technologies to improve business operations, the invention of digital business models, interacting with customers and stakeholders through digital platforms. Taking into account the real situation, it is necessary to find opportunities for optimizing the activities of the able-bodied part of the population of the Kazakhstani village, while it is important to analyze the economic and technological needs of economic entities in agricultural sector. Also, the authors focus on some practical problems that the researcher and manager face when assessing the labor potential of rural areas.

Weaponising Europe? Rule-makers and rule-takers in the EU regulatory security state

ABSTRACT In contrast to the conventional wisdom that security is governed exclusively by nation states exercising political authority to generate public security goods, the European Union can also be considered a security state: it governs security indirectly by making rules incentivising and steering the provision of public security goods. To what degree, however, does the EU govern defence markets, shape the trajectory of national defence capabilities, and direct efforts towards European strategic autonomy? This paper traces the EU’s attempts to regulate arms production and identifies critical junctures in EU authority as a market rule-maker over the means of force. It finds that market rule-takers—non-state defence firms—are shaped by EU epistemic authority and regulation. Specifically, EU rule-making shapes firm perceptions of relative defence market uncertainty. Firms perceiving future home defense markets as less risky due to regulatory oversight are incentivised to reduce their own current profits by self-funding innovation towards future defence requirements and procurement sales to their home states. By incentivising the non-state production of public security goods with its rule-making and relational market power, the EU is a modern regulatory security state, even in the defence domain where it has little political authority.

ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКАЯ СУЩНОСТЬ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ФРИРАЙДЕРА И ЕЕ НЕГАТИВНОЕ ВЛИЯНИЕ НА ЭКОНОМИКУ СТРАНЫ

The article examines and studies the essence and significance of public goods, which play an important role in the economy of any state. The problem of the free rider, well-known in the economic literature, is touched upon, since the modern world continues to struggle with a group of unscrupulous “free riders” who are trying to enjoy all the benefits without participating in the production of public goods, i.e. they are consumers at the expense of conscientious citizens.

Strategic resources for Digital transformation of Economic activity and Public administration in the field of Landscaping

The article reveals the role of strategic resources of digital transformation of economic activity and public administration in the production of public goods preferred by citizens. The potential of digitalization increases the economic efficiency of the client-centered model of building a dialogue between public authorities and citizens. Operational study of the usefulness of improvement facilities optimizes the costs of their construction. Object of research: strategic resources of digital transformation of economic activity and public administration. Subject of research: digital technologies for identifying preferences of economic agents regarding their assessment of the utility of the public good. The purpose of the work is to prove the need for the use of digital technologies as a guarantee of optimization of economic and managerial decisions regarding the implementation of the federal project on the formation of a comfortable urban environment. Methods of work: from the position of the ordinalist approach, a qualitative analysis of the characteristics, properties of the public good, including the products of digital transformation, considered as such. The result of the work: taking into account the foreign experience of GovTech, strategic resources of digital transformation of public administration in the field of construction of welfare facilities are determined; the role of resources ensuring the achievement of the efficiency of the production of public goods of digitalization of public administration is substantiated; essential features, dependencies in the provision of public goods, in relation to digital support of decision-making at the state and municipal level are interpreted.

Conflict of interests in commercial and civil law

The modern specifics of the development of social relations are due to new phenomena that require research and regulation. One of these is the issue of conflict of interest settlement in the business sphere. Given this, it is critical to analyze the causes of conflicts of interest in the system of management and production of public goods, which will contribute to the acceleration of the improvement of the management system and the transformation of the economy of Ukraine. The work aims to identify the conflict of interests in the business sphere and to determine the methods of their settlement. The research methodology consists of: the dialectic method, the abstraction method, the analysis and synthesis method, the logical-semantic method, the classification and grouping method, the system-structural method, the functional method, the sociological method, the statistical method, the formal-legal method, the synergistic method, the historical-legal method, comparative-legal method, method of interpretation and hermeneutics, analytical method and logical-legal method. As a result of the research, it is noted that the conflict of interests is a generally accepted term denoting a contradiction between the interests that are protected by law and must be satisfied by the actions of another authorized person and the personal interests of this authorized person. In particular, the essence, peculiarities of passage, and consequences of the conflict of interests in the field of management were investigated. Attention is drawn to the fact that the conflict of interests in the field of management is considered as a potential threat to the implementation of entrepreneurial activity.