Production Of Public Goods Research Articles

Does GST (Goods and Services Tax) in India Hurt Producing Regions? A New Estimate of the Tax Base Under GST of Select States

GST as introduced in India being a destination based tax, does not encourage regions to vigorously promote manufacturing and tradable services industries. Being in the midst of its economic transformation, and given the subnational character of most states (regions), it is important that the states engage in locational tournaments to attract investments, not through tax concessions, but through the provision of infrastructure services, governance, and other intangible services. A new consumption based approach that adjusts the detailed consumer expenditure figures of the National Sample Surveys at the state level is developed. This is shown to be robust and is used to estimate the RNR (Revenue Neutral Rate of Taxes) at the State level. This reveals that there are stark differences between the rates for the producing states and the consumption oriented states amounting to as much as 10% of GDP. These differences cannot be bridged by the proposed compensation scheme. As the impact of GST goes on to the next stage of determining the locational choices of new investments, the lack of fiscal incentives for states to attract and nurture investments, unless corrected would have deleterious effects on the investment process. As much as 50% of the Centre’s collection of GST may have to be distributed based on economic activity centered around manufacturing and tradable services production, if the country is not to lose the steam of high and growing investments to take it through its economic transformation. The contrast with China is remarkable, China’s GST is only partial covering only manufacturing and associated labour services, allowing states to tax and retain many services irrespective of the location of the consumer of the service. More importantly as much as 25% of the central collections on account of GST (in manufacturing) go to the provinces based on their public goods production.

Grandparents Matter: Perspectives on Intergenerational Altruism and a Pilot Intergenerational Public Good Experiment

The development and use of long-lived public goods involve more than one demographic generation, leaving the classic literature on voluntary provisions partially unfit to explain complex phenomena such as welfare systems, climate policies and major infrastructure projects. This paper proposes an experimental approach that can be used to further investigate how a public good is produced by one generation of individuals while the next reaps its benefits. Within this framework the case of intergenerational public goods production is explained using a spillover rule, where a percentage of the public good produced in time t by experimental parents will integrate the endowment of their artefactual children in t + 1. A cascade mechanism allows also for the rebirth of three generations of players, mimicking the biological and anthropological mechanisms of gene transmission and intergenerational altruism. Experimental evidence shows that subjects who are prompted on their lineage membership tend to contribute more compared to those who are not included in a dynastic framework. More importantly, results reveal that the true dynastic background of individuals is a prominent influence in the levels of contribution towards public goods.

Family clans and public goods: Evidence from the New Village Beautification Project in South Korea

Ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity are widely studied as determinants of social capital, conflict, and institutional quality. In many cultures, another important dimension of heterogeneity is family clan membership. I study the relationship between family clan diversity in South Korean villages and the voluntary production of public goods and contributions of private resources for village projects. Under the 1970–1971 New Village Beautification Project, the government distributed resources to each village for the production of village public goods. Subsequently, the government systematically evaluated how well these resources were applied. I combine these data with information on village family clan structures collected by the Japanese Colonial Government, as well as records of land donations for village projects between 1970 and 1980. I find an inverted-U-shaped effect of group heterogeneity on the improvement of public goods.

Ekonomiczne i ekologiczne efekty zewnętrzne w planowaniu przestrzennym

Gospodarowanie przestrzenią jest zadaniem trudnym, zwłaszcza w kontekście ograniczoności dostępnych zasobów. Ponadto w związku z wytwarzaniem dóbr publicznych i prywatnych generowane są w przestrzeni miasta efekty zewnętrzne. Mając na względzie złożoność tego problemu, w artykule podjęto dyskusję teoretyczną na temat problematyki efektów zewnętrznych (spillover) w planowaniu zabudowy przestrzeni, zwłaszcza tych przeznaczanych pod zabudowę mieszkaniową. Rozważania skupiono na ekonomicznych, ale także przyrodniczych oraz technologicznych efektach zewnętrznych towarzyszących gospodarce przestrzennej.

A single mutation in rapP induces cheating to prevent cheating in Bacillus subtilis by minimizing public good production

Cooperation is beneficial to group behaviors like multicellularity, but is vulnerable to exploitation by cheaters. Here we analyze mechanisms that protect against exploitation of extracellular surfactin in swarms of Bacillus subtilis. Unexpectedly, the reference strain NCIB 3610 displays inherent resistance to surfactin-non-producing cheaters, while a different wild isolate is susceptible. We trace this interstrain difference down to a single amino acid change in the plasmid-borne regulator RapP, which is necessary and sufficient for cheater mitigation. This allele, prevalent in many Bacillus species, optimizes transcription of the surfactin operon to the minimum needed for full cooperation. When combined with a strain lacking rapP, NCIB 3610 acts as a cheater itself—except it does not harm the population at high proportions since it still produces enough surfactin. This strategy of minimal production is thus a doubly advantageous mechanism to limit exploitation of public goods, and is readily evolved from existing regulatory networks.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AS A MODEL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION INFRASTRUCTURE AND PEDAGOGICAL STANDARDS: THE CASE OF VARAŽDIN COUNTY, CROATIA

The aim of the paper is to analyse the model of public-private partnership in Varaždin County for the purpose of developing educational infrastructure and strengthening the pedagogical standard. Design. A public-private partnership stands for a joint activity of the public and private sectors in the production of public goods or the provision of public services, either at the central government level or at the local self-government unit. The need for public-private cooperation is more common at the local level because global trends such as decentralization bind the local self-government to search for effective responses on their responsibilities. Based on the theoretical background of public-private partnership and the analysis of the external environment of the public-private partnership model on the example of the Varaždin County in the field of education, key factors that influence the model of public-private partnerships have been identified. Moreover, the effects of such partnerships between the public and private sector have been identified too, as well as the weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in applying such a model at the local and regional level and in the education sector. Findings. In order to increase the efficiency of the country in the terms of publicprivate partnership, the benefits of a public-private partnership model should be recognized and the limitations should be reduced by providing the set of standards for the co-financing the model of public-private partnership for each sector separately (education sector, public transport, healthcare, environment, public order and safety, energy and etc.).

Family Clans and Public Goods: Evidence from the New Village Beautification Project in South Korea

Ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity are widely studied as determinants of social capital, conflict, and institutional quality. In many cultures, another important dimension of heterogeneity is family clan membership. I study the relationship between family clan diversity in South Korean villages and the voluntary production of public goods and contributions of private resource for village projects. Under the 1970-1971 New Village Beautification Project, the government distributed resources to each village for the production of village public goods. Subsequently, the government systematically evaluated how well these resources were applied. I combine these data with information on village family clan structures collected by the Japanese Colonial Government, as well as records of land donations for village projects between 1970 and 1980. I find an inverted-U-shaped effect of group heterogeneity on the improvement of public goods.

Eco-evolutionary dynamics of a population with randomly switching carrying capacity.

Environmental variability greatly influences the eco-evolutionary dynamics of a population, i.e. it affects how its size and composition evolve. Here, we study a well-mixed population of finite and fluctuating size whose growth is limited by a randomly switching carrying capacity. This models the environmental fluctuations between states of resources abundance and scarcity. The population consists of two strains, one growing slightly faster than the other, competing under two scenarios: one in which competition is solely for resources, and one in which the slow (cooperating) strain produces a public good (PG) that benefits also the fast (free-riding) strain. We investigate how the coupling of demographic and environmental (external) noise affects the population's eco-evolutionary dynamics. By analytical and computational means, we study the correlations between the population size and its composition, and discuss the social-dilemma-like 'eco-evolutionary game' characterizing the PG production. We determine in what conditions it is best to produce a PG; when cooperating is beneficial but outcompeted by free riding, and when the PG production is detrimental for cooperators. Within a linear noise approximation to populations of varying size, we also accurately analyse the coupled effects of demographic and environmental noise on the size distribution.

The community philanthropic foundation: A new form of independent public service provider for China?

There have been growing calls for new theories understand public governance with respect to service provision collaboration involving nonprofit and for-profit actors. In this article, we develop a framework for analyzing whether and how independent public service providers change cross-sector collaboration. We examine new forms of collaboration in nonprofit organizations in China. Based on a discussion of the effectiveness of public service delivery by community philanthropic foundations in three Chinese cities, our analysis reveals that the new type of collaboration entities are attempting to meet unfulfilled public needs. Outside the government’s hierarchical structure, nonprofit and for-profit actors jointly form independent organizations to address public issues. However, because public governance systems are more centralized in China than in many Western countries, the country faces major challenges in the production and delivery of public goods and in implementing service reforms. This article extends the existing research discourse on public governance and cross-sector collaboration.

Maximizing Growth Yield and Dispersal via Quorum Sensing Promotes Cooperation in Vibrio Bacteria.

Quorum sensing (QS) is a form of bacterial chemical communication that regulates cellular phenotypes, including certain cooperative behaviors, in response to environmental and demographic changes. Despite the existence of proposed mechanisms that stabilize QS against defector exploitation, it is unclear if or how QS cooperators can proliferate in some model systems in populations mostly consisting of defectors. We predicted that growth in fragmented subpopulations could allow QS cooperators to invade a QS defector population. This could occur despite cooperators having lower relative fitnesses than defectors due to favored weighting of genotypes that produce larger populations of bacteria. Mixed metapopulations of Vibrio QS-proficient or unconditional cooperators and QS defectors were diluted and fragmented into isolated subpopulations in an environment that requires QS-regulated public good production to achieve larger population yields. Under these conditions, we observed global invasions of both cooperator genotypes into populations composed of primarily defectors. This spatially dependent increase in cooperator frequency was replicated for QS cooperators when mixed populations were competed in soft agar motility plates under conditions that allowed cooperators to disperse and outcompete defectors at the population edge, despite being less motile in isolation than defectors. These competition results show that the coordinated growth and dispersal of QS cooperators to additional resources is heavily favored in comparison to unconditional cooperation, and that dispersal of cooperators by motility into new environments, examined here in laboratory populations, constitutes a key mechanism for maintaining QS-regulated cooperation in the face of defection.IMPORTANCE Behaviors that are cooperative in nature are at risk of exploitation by cheating and are thus difficult to maintain by natural selection alone. While bacterial cell-cell communication, known as quorum sensing (QS), can stabilize microbial cooperative behaviors and is widespread in Vibrio species, it is unclear how QS can increase the frequency of cooperative strains in the presence of defectors without additional mechanisms. In this study, we demonstrate under multiple conditions that QS-mediated cooperation can increase in populations of Vibrio strains when cells experience narrow population bottlenecks or disperse from defectors. This occurred for both conditional cooperation mediated by QS and for unconditional cooperation, although conditional cooperators were better able to stabilize cooperation over a much wider range of conditions. Thus, we observed that population structuring allowed for assortment of competing genotypes and promoted cooperation via kin selection in microbes in a QS-dependent manner.

Pyocyanin Restricts Social Cheating in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Quorum sensing (QS) in Pseudomonas aeruginosa coordinates the expression of virulence factors, such as exoproteases and siderophores, that are public goods utilized by the whole population of bacteria, regardless of whether they invested or not in their production. These public goods can be used by QS defective mutants for growth, and since these mutants do not contribute to public goods production, they are considered social cheaters. Pyocyanin is a phenazine that is a toxic, QS-controlled metabolite produced by P. aeruginosa. It is a redox-active compound and promotes the generation of reactive oxygen species; it also possesses antibacterial properties and increases fitness in competition with other bacterial species. Since QS-deficient individuals are less able to tolerate oxidative stress, we hypothesized that the pyocyanin produced by the wild-type population could promote selection of functional QS systems in this bacterium. Here, we demonstrate, using competition experiments and mathematical models, that, indeed, pyocyanin increases the fitness of the cooperative QS-proficient individuals and restricts the appearance of social cheaters. In addition, we also show that pyocyanin is able to select QS in other bacteria such as Acinetobacter baumannii.

Tax Evasion and Provision of Public Goods: Implications for Wage and Employment

This exploratory paper analyses, theoretically with some numerical examples, the relationship between tax evasion and provision of public goods. In this model, we incorporate tax evasion leading to a fall in the supply of public goods. We investigate the relation between provision of public goods and wages of workers engaged in the production of public goods and an intermediate private goods. We show that under plausible conditions, and parameter values, fall in the number of taxpayers leads not only to fall in the provision of public goods, but also lowers wages. We find a threshold level of marginal cost associated with supply of public goods, above which the rise in the number of taxpayers may still lower provision of public goods and worker’s wages. JEL Classifications: H26, H41, E24

Multiple scales in metapopulations of public goods producers.

Multiple scales in metapopulations can give rise to paradoxical behavior: in a conceptual model for a public goods game, the species associated with a fitness cost due to the public good production can be stabilized in the well-mixed limit due to the mere existence of these scales. The scales in this model involve a length scale corresponding to separate patches, coupled by mobility, and separate time scales for reproduction and interaction with a local environment. Contrary to the well-mixed high mobility limit, we find that for low mobilities, the interaction rate progressively stabilizes this species due to stochastic effects, and that the formation of spatial patterns is not crucial for this stabilization.

Progress on the regulation of quorum sensing in wastewater treatment

Quorum sensing is a phenomenon that microorganisms secrete some signal molecules, when such molecules accumulate to a threshold level, which would realize the information communication by regulating specific gene expression. Quorum sensing, which is widely found in information communication of various microorganisms, regulates a variety of social behaviors, such as biofilm formation, public goods production, and gene horizontal transfer of bacteria. The phenomenon of quorum sensing is widespread in biological aggregates, such as activated sludge, biofilm and granular sludge. Learning and understanding the regulation behavior between quorum sensing and microorganisms plays an important role in wastewater treatment. Here, we reviewed the classification of the sensing signal molecule, regulation mechanism of quorum sensing, as well as the regulation behavior of quorum sensing in activated sludge, biofilm, aerobic granular sludge, and anaerobic granular sludge. The future researches of quorum sensing in wastewater treatment were discussed. This review could deepen the understanding of the regulation of quorum sensing in wastewater treatment.

Provision of public goods using a combination of lottery and a provision point

This paper experimentally examines the effect of using lotteries in conjunction with provision points to finance public goods. While lotteries and provision points both reduce free-riding, they do not completely eliminate the free-riding incentive of individuals, often leaving the good unprovided. In the search for a mechanism that works better, we propose the use of a lottery along with a threshold requirement and test it in a laboratory experimental setup against the popular provision point mechanism. We find that a lottery involving a small prize and a threshold outperforms the provision point mechanism by increasing the average amount of contributions and the frequency of provision. We further test an extension of our mechanism that is well-suited for situations with multiple public goods. The mechanism is designed to avoid monetary prizes associated with lotteries, preventing legal complications and diversion of funds from the public good production. It also has the advantage of easing coordination among the potential donors trying to meet the threshold. The findings confirm that the new mechanism may improve the efficiency of private provision of public goods and have implications for crowdfunding websites with varying rates of project failure, arising partially from their reliance on provision point mechanisms.

Quorum-sensing control of antibiotic resistance stabilizes cooperation in Chromobacterium violaceum.

Many Proteobacteria use quorum sensing to regulate production of public goods, such as antimicrobials and proteases, that are shared among members of a community. Public goods are vulnerable to exploitation by cheaters, such as quorum sensing-defective mutants. Quorum sensing- regulated private goods, goods that benefit only producing cells, can prevent the emergence of cheaters under certain growth conditions. Previously, we developed a laboratory co-culture model to investigate the importance of quorum-regulated antimicrobials during interspecies competition. In our model, Burkholderia thailandensis and Chromobacterium violaceum each use quorum sensing-controlled antimicrobials to inhibit the other species' growth. Here, we show that C. violaceum uses quorum sensing to increase resistance to bactobolin, a B. thailandensis antibiotic, by increasing transcription of a putative antibiotic efflux pump. We demonstrate conditions where C. violaceum quorum-defective cheaters emerge and show that in these conditions, bactobolin restrains cheaters. We also demonstrate that bactobolin restrains quorum-defective mutants in our co-culture model, and the increase in antimicrobial-producing cooperators drives the C. violaceum population to become more competitive. Our results describe a mechanism of cheater restraint involving quorum control of efflux pumps and demonstrate that interspecies competition can reinforce cooperative behaviors by placing constraints on quorum sensing-defective mutants.

Імперативи комплементарного розвитку в аграрній сфері

Modern vector of agriculture policy development in leading countries is oriented to complementary characteristics of agro-food systems, where production of actual and public goods are combined. Taking into account the complementary nature of connections between agriculture and rural developments, specific policy regulations and financial instruments are used in order to keep the proper balance. For transition to such policy-making in Ukrainian realities, it makes sense to start using the term as a united subject of state regulation and state financial support instead of the currently used term agro-industrial complex or agrarian sector. Introduction of the term of agrosphere in the policy-making process would ensure that regulation is made for a multi-level and multi-functional system, covering social, economic and environmental aspects, directly connected with food self-fulfillment and export potential fulfillment. Complementarity in agrosphere development is envisioned as inter-connection between agriculture and rural area, under which, as a result of their cooperation, effectiveness of the production, and welfare of rural population increase and broad recovery of production resources is ensured in a certain territory. Transition to complementary development of agrosphere consists in the introduction of the new system of state regulation, which can protect traditional agriculture and village based on public understanding of their complementary nature and form general opposition to the current state of relations between agro-business, natural resources and rural communities. This would require significant public expenditures (first of all financial), involvement of socially responsible private investments and environmentally safe technologies, and specific political instruments, in particular science-based socioeconomic planning on the national level.

When increasing population density can promote the evolution of metabolic cooperation.

Microbial cooperation drives ecological and epidemiological processes and is affected by the ecology and demography of populations. Population density influences the selection for cooperation, with spatial structure and the type of social dilemma, namely public-goods production or self-restraint, shaping the outcome. While existing theories predict that in spatially structured environments increasing population density can select either for or against cooperation, experimental studies with both public-goods production and self-restraint systems have only ever shown that increasing population density favours cheats. We suggest that the disparity between theory and empirical studies results from experimental procedures not capturing environmental conditions predicted by existing theories to influence the outcome. Our study resolves this issue and provides the first experimental evidence that high population density can favour cooperation in spatially structured environments for both self-restraint and public-goods production systems. Moreover, using a multi-trait mathematical model supported by laboratory experiments we extend this result to systems where the self-restraint and public-goods social dilemmas interact. We thus provide a systematic understanding of how the strength of interaction between the two social dilemmas and the degree of spatial structure within an environment affect selection for cooperation. These findings help to close the current gap between theory and experiments.

Забезпечення повноцінного економічного обігу земель сільськогосподарського призначення: роль бухгалтерського обліку

Today, researchers use a wide range of terms, the economic essence of which remains uncovered. The purpose of the article is to disclose the essence of the economic turnover of agricultural land, its objects, subjects, structure, and to substantiate the role of accounting in ensuring the completeness of such turnover. It was determined that the economic turnover of agricultural land is a set of socio-economic relations regulated by legal norms that ensure the continuous participation of the agricultural land in the production of public goods. The objects of these relations are land plots and the rights to use them, and subjects are state institutions, landowners and land users and other related parties. The essence of the economic turnover of the land is not to change the owner, but to ensure the continuous participation of land assets in the production of public goods. The land market should not be identified as the economic turnover of the land. The land market is one of the components of economic turnover of the land and can be identified as a property rights market – designed to change the owner and the market of rights to use land – changes the land user. It was proved that the absence of the property rights market in Ukraine does not hinder the development of economic turnover of the agricultural land. A full-fledged economic turnover of land provides for the possibility of using a land plot as a separate means of producing public goods, and also as element of various business processes (lending, taxation, capitalization). It was revealed that the use of any assets, in particular the land plots and the rights to use them, in business processes is impossible without their identification in the accounting system of economic entities. It was substantiated that the existing underdevelopment of the practice of accounting for land assets is mainly related to the complexity of the monetary valuation of the latter.

Неформальна підривна інституціалізація як характеристика української політики.

The article studies the evolution and forms of the destructive type of informal institutions in Ukraine. It proves that at different development stages of independent Ukraine the informal political institutional space played a decisive role in shaping the political landscape and states that the significant influence of informal political institutions on the Ukrainian politics led to the emergence of institutional defects in the political governance infrastructure of the country. The author analyzes the processes of client networks’ modification during the presidency of L. Kuchma, V. Yushchenko, V. Yanukovych, and expresses thoughts on the changes in the structure and intensity of informal politics in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity. The study investigates the peculiarities of the existing state-political order in Ukraine, which is determined by institutional characteristics such as clientism, clanism, cronyism, patronage relations etc. It defines the main manifestations of nepotism, cronyism etc. in the Ukrainian politics and the main factors, which allow the activity of informal subversive institutions in Ukraine. They include: lack of constructed, institutionally developed state architecture; chaotic processes of political institutionalization; the political system not being focused on the production of public goods, but on the practices of rent-seeking and “state capture”; propensity of the governing elite to solve issues using the informal institutions and practices; insignificant level of control over the power reproduction processes by the Ukrainian society etc. The author hypothesized that the way out of the situation of informal destructive institutions’ dominance in the domestic politics lies in the sphere of political culture, namely in formation of a value-oriented outlook (axiosphere), which denies the acceptability of using the instruments of subversive institutionalization in building the statehood on the democratic basis.