Theory Of Public Goods Research Articles

Financial inclusion matter for poverty, income inequality and financial stability in developing countries: new evidence from public good theory

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the influence of financial inclusion (FI) on poverty, income inequality and financial stability from the perspective of public good (PG) theory in developing countries.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies the fixed effects model (FEM), pooled ordinary least square (OLS) regression and generalized method of moment (GMM) across panal data of 69 developing countries from 2002 to 2020 inclusive.FindingsMultiple regression analyses show that FI reduces poverty and income inequality while improving financial stability. Secondary enrolment ratio, GDP per capita, and trade openness reduce poverty and income inequality. However, a higher inflation rate increases poverty and income inequality while reducing financial stability. Finally, age dependency ratio and population do not affect poverty, income inequality or financial stability.Research limitations/implicationsThe regulators and policymakers in developing countries should raise the level of formal FI by expanding the size of the formal financial sector and improving the access of the large unbanked population to financial products/services. Improving FI enables the unbanked population to take over productive activities and ease consumption, which in turn complementing economic growth.Social implicationsThe increase in FI enables the developing countries to include the financially excluded population through formal financial products and services, which improve financial stability and eradicate poverty and income inequality in society. Thus, the FI enhances the social welfare of society.Originality/valueThis is the first study that examines the impact of FI poverty, income inequality and financial stability in the context of developing countries. This study contributes to the theoretical implications of the PG theory by examining the influence of FI on poverty, income inequality and financial stability in the context of developing countries.

Feasibility Analysis of Arctic Governance Based on International Public Goods Theory

As the geopolitical importance of the Arctic region has grown, the "geopolitics of the cryosphere" has been gradually developed. The study of geopolitical game phenomena such as territorial disputes and resource competition in the polar regions based on realism is the general context for the study of Arctic governance. This paper categorizes the subjects and objects in Arctic governance in the context of the geopolitics of the cryosphere and based on the theory of international public goods. This leads to an analysis of the respective dilemmas of the countries involved in Arctic governance and the areas targeted by it. Cases are also given to suggest solutions to the problems for the subjects and objects of Arctic governance. This paper analyzes the dilemmas that each participating subject and governance area may face in Arctic governance based on international public goods theory. It provides a theoretical basis in policy practice for countries to participate in Arctic governance and to carry out governance in solving problems in different areas. This paper uses the case study approach to analyze the governance dilemmas in the Arctic using international public goods theory. Finally, the dilemma faced by the governance subjects and governance objects was summarized, and corresponding policy suggestions were put forward.

Regulating Social Media as a Public Good: Limiting Epistemic Segregation

ABSTRACT The rise of social media has correlated with an increase in political polarization, which many perceive as a threat to public discourse and democratic governance. This paper presents a framework, drawing on social epistemology and the economic theory of public goods, to explain how social media can contribute to polarization, making us collectively poorer, even while it provides a preferable media experience for individual consumers. Collective knowledge and consensus is best served by having richly connected networks that are epistemically integrated: individuals with diverse levels of expertise should be relatively well connected to each other. In epistemically segregated networks, by contrast, we have reason to predict collective epistemic failures. Expert knowledge will be isolated from the majority, leading average opinion to be less informed than is socially optimal, and entrenching disagreements. Because social media enables users to very easily adopt homophilous network connections – connections to those with similar opinions, education levels, and social backgrounds – it is likely to have increased epistemic segregation compared to older media platforms. The paper explains the theoretical foundations of these predictions, and sketches regulatory measures – such as taxes – that might be employed to preserve the public good of a well integrated social media network.

How to Improve the Supply of Quasi-Public Forest Infrastructure When Government Is the Leader: Evidence from Experimental Economics

Forest infrastructure is an important material basis for healthy forests. According to public goods theory, most forest infrastructures are quasi-public goods, with demand exceeding supply, more than one supplier, unclear responsibilities between suppliers, and a resultant free-rider problem. This study explored ways to improve the supply of goods for forest infrastructure when the government—as leader—cooperates with foresters—as followers. Experimental economics were used to explain the factors that influence the behaviour of forest infrastructure quasi-public goods suppliers; to design twelve policy scenarios by communication, information feedback, rewards and punishments, and leadership styles; and to simulate the changes in foresters’ supply behaviour in different scenarios to analyse which policies were conducive to improving the supply of quasi-public forest infrastructures. The results were as follows: communication, rewards and punishments, information feedback, and leadership style reduce foresters’ free-riding behaviour; communication, rewards, and punishment increase supply, and, furthermore, the supply of the scenario with rewards and punishment is 1.792–4.616 times that of the situation without rewards and punishment; without the constraints of rewards and punishment, only feedback information reduces the supply; and the p values of the Mann–Whitney U test for the influence of leadership style on the supply level of forest infrastructure were all greater than 0.05, which indicates that no significant difference exists between leading by words and leading by example in supply improvement. When foresters are able to communicate with each other, reward and punishment exist, and information feedback is provided; hence, the supply of foresters is higher regardless of whether the government leads by words or by example. This study provided policy suggestions on how to improve the supply of quasi-public goods for forestry infrastructure, namely, that the organizer should organize foresters to fully negotiate before raising funds for infrastructure construction; publish, when appropriate, the supply and income of foresters; and formulate appropriate reward and punishment measures.

Examining the rationality of free riding: A multifaceted analysis

Free riding, characterized by individuals benefiting from shared resources without contributing equitably, presents a pervasive challenge across diverse domains. This paper leverages insights from game theory to analyze strategic interactions and decision-making within scenarios involving shared resources. It employs classic games such as The Prisoner's Dilemma and The Tragedy of the Commons as illustrative examples, offering deeper insights into the rational choices individuals make when deciding whether to cooperate or free ride. Furthermore, the paper incorporates perspectives from behavioral economics and seminal economic theories, including public goods theory, the tragedy of the commons, game theory, principal-agent theory, and market failure with externalities. Through rigorous examination and analysis, our aim is to contribute to the growing body of knowledge surrounding free riding and its implications for economic decision-making and societal well-being.

Education reforms and democracy in Pakistan: the problem of privatisation

ABSTRACT In many nations around the globe, including Pakistan, education is losing ground as a public good to become another market-based commodity as the state shrinks its responsibility to schooling. This presents challenges to democratic futures, and particularly for young democratic states such as Pakistan. The government of Pakistan is pouring a significant amount of money into the private provision of education, encouraged by the policies and investments of international donor-partners such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. These changes in educational provision represent the impacts of neoliberalism and globalisation on Pakistani policymaking and the growing influence of the conceptualisation of education as a private commodity. To address these trends, we offer a normative philosophical framework for a conception of education as a critical public good in Pakistan, drawing on Islamic tradition, public good theory, human rights, and common good global education theories.

Evolution of community residents’ waste classification behavior based on multi-agent simulation

ABSTRACT Municipal domestic waste (MDW) management is essential to maintain ecological security. Waste classification is seen as a solution to the urban waste dilemma. However, very few residents in China are currently involved in waste classification. Based on the public goods theory and the hypothesis of rational behavior, with the aid of GIS, this paper develops a multi-agent model to simulate the features and evolution of residents’ waste classification behavior in the context of community. By comparing the percentage of those who participate in waste classification in different scenarios, various factors that may influence residents’ waste classification behavior are analyzed. The simulation results show that the improvement of convenience facilities and the promotion of awareness-raising activities help enhancing residents’ waste classification behavior. An increase in rewards and penalties by the government will promote residents’ waste classification behavior, though this promotion is not significant. Adherent enforcers can provide a continuous incentive for residential waste classification behavior. This study provides evidence for the government and communities to develop waste classification policies and motivate residents to participate in waste classification. Implications: Municipal waste seriously restricts the survival and development of cities, and waste disposal has become a problem that plagues government managers in various countries. Waste classification is considered to be an effective way to solve the municipal waste dilemma, but currently China faces the dilemma of low residents’ participation in waste classification. Through multi-agent modeling, the interaction and decision-making of urban residents in the process of waste classification are simulated, and introduce GIS to truly restore the daily classification scenes of residents. Explore the dynamic evolution of urban residents’ classification behavior and the change of residents’ waste classification rate under different situations to find more effective ways to improve the participation rate of residents in waste classification and give targeted and practical countermeasure suggestions. It provides decision-making reference for the formulation of governmental waste classification policies and the design of community behavior programs, and to contribute to the sustainable development of society.

Initiative Improvement in Saint-Petersburg: from Local Community Art towards Tactical Urbanism

The article summarizes the preliminary results of the analysis of public initiatives in the field of landscaping in St. Petersburg. In order to systematize the variety of research approaches and assessments of interested persons authors used the methods of source analysis and generalization (grouping) of assessments and analogies in relation to the objects and phenomena under consideration.The practical part of the study consisted in the formation of an array of data and a bank of cases in the field of grassroots initiatives to improve the urban environment and the formation of public spaces. Based on the data obtained, there was created a map of the activity of urban communities, as well as a heat map, illustrating the foci of concentration of the social capital of the city. As the analytical tools authors used models of joint actions and cooperation, research methods of the theory of public goods and behavioral economics, as well as the method of geoinformation analysis.As a unifying term for the phenomena under consideration, the authors propose the term “initiative improving”, meaning a spontaneously emerging and developing form of civic activity at the place of residence using self-organization and self-financing tools. The range of revealed facts of initiative landscaping varies from negatively perceived ‘local community art’ (a form of naive and artisanal improvement of the space around a residential building) to initiatives of residents to restore and form public facilities approved by the majority (restoration of entrances of historical buildings, lost historical elements, green spaces). Intermediate forms in this regard are initiatives within the framework of territorial public self-government, festive events and temporary facilities. The concept that allows us to describe the most constructive format is M. Lydon's “tactical urbanism” — the theory of “small affairs” in the field of urban development.The novelty of the presented approach consists in the systematization of the facts of initiative improvement (including negative ones) and their integration into the general logic of modern urban development against the background of currently prevailing approaches based on the allocation of the decisive role of professionals and experts in this process.

How to improve public health literacy based on polycentric public goods theory: preferences of the Chinese general population

BackgroundIn the current era of big data, it is critical to address people’s demand for health literacy. At present, the traditional mode of communicating scientific health knowledge and information technology is interchangeable, resulting in the emergence of a new mode of communicating health literacy. To publicize health education and health literacy in a targeted way, to meet the public’s needs, and to understand how the public’s demand for subjects, contents, and forms of health literacy service has changed in the era of COVID-19, the investigation of public’s demand for health information and health literacy was conducted.ObjectiveThis study aims to understand the differences in demand for health literacy service providers, contents, channels, forms, and facilities among Chinese citizens with different genders, ages, education levels, economic conditions, and living environments, and to provide reasonable recommendations for developing public health literacy.MethodsQuestionnaire Star was used to conduct a large sample of random online surveys. In Wuhan, Hubei Province, 2184 questionnaires were issued, 8 invalid questionnaires were eliminated, and 2176 were recovered, with an effective rate of 99.6%. IBM SPSS Statistics 20 was utilized to analyze the survey data.Results(1) In health literacy service providers selected by the public, the proportion of government departments or government collaboration with other institutions exceeded 73%, indicating that health literacy services are public goods; (2) access to health literacy services was lower in township areas than in urban areas (P < 0.001, 3) internet media and communicating with acquaintances, which have the highest popularity rate, were also the two channels that were least trusted by the public; and (4) the differences in contents and service channels of health literacy among residents with different genders, ages, education levels, economic status, and living environments were statistically significant.Conclusions(1) It is recommended to establish an integrated health literacy service model with multi-center supply. Government departments, medical institutions, and media should cooperate effectively to provide health literacy services. (2) The government should pay attention to the fairness of health education and strengthen the supply of health literacy services in township areas. (3) It is critical to strengthen the public’s ability to discriminate network information and pay attention to scientific thinking cultivation. (4) Health literacy service providers must focus on the differences between public demands and improve the connotation of health literacy services.

Hybrid model for the social services sphere: Organisational and economic aspects

The hybrid model of the social services sphere, which has formed during the transition of the planned economies to the market, suffers from certain limitations. Specifically, the main criterion to select services providers is cost reduction, while the services output and the population sufficiency with the provision of services are not taken into account, which contradicts the principles of the social state. The article aims to substantiate a methodological approach that allows forming a hybrid model for the social services sphere based on the principle of allocative efficiency, which provides for the comparison of the output by social services providers from the public, private and non-profit sectors of the economy. The methodological basis of the study includes the club theory, theories of public goods, competition, and efficiency. The major research method is comparative analysis. The paper proposes a method for building the said model for the social services sphere, where the criterion of hybridization is allocative efficiency. The papers forecasts the volume of social services industries’ output given the introduction of principle of allocative efficiency. Comparison of this data with the output of the existing hybrid model reveals that significant resources can be released to be potentially redirected to satisfy other social needs. This confirms the reliability of the formulated methodological provisions.

Efficiency of Public and Private Service Delivery: The Case of Secondary Education

A current issue is the evaluation of the efficiency of various types of education service providers. This paper aims to evaluate the efficiency of the services of secondary education provided by a variety of types of providers. The evaluation of secondary education is performed on a sample of 26 grammar schools in the Prešov region of the Slovak Republic. The method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used. The results of the efficiency of 26 grammar schools in the period 2012-2013 to 2016-2017 showed that grammar schools from the sample established by all providers (public, private, church entity) reached the full efficiency score. By contrast, six grammar schools were evaluated as the least efficient. The evaluation of the set of grammar schools based on the average efficiency score also showed that, from the viewpoint of the types of providers, public grammar schools reach higher efficiency scores, in comparison with church and private grammar schools. These findings expand on the theory of public goods with respect to their production and render valuable information for not only education providers but also creators of regional strategic plans in education policies.

Bug Bounties: Between New Regulations and Geopolitical Dynamics

Crowdsourced security and vulnerability co-ordination platforms, such as Bugcrowd or HackerOne, reward individuals for discovering, reporting, and responsibly disclosing software bugs. A growing number of vendors are turning towards these platforms to improve their product’s security, whilst others set up their own bug bounty programs (BBPs) alongside more traditional approaches, such as in-house testing and professional security reviews. Whether providing a supplementary or even alternative path to organisational cybersecurity, these newer approaches go beyond increasing product security, for example by fostering co-operation between various actors or providing a clear incentive to remain on the ethical side of security research. Whilst some research centres on the reward structures, actor motivations, or effectiveness, the wider impact on peace and stability in cyberspace is rarely examined. Similarly, rarely is light shed on emerging regulatory or policy approaches, or the effects this might have. To fill these gaps, the paper will use Global Public Goods (GPGs) theory to example BBPs across two case studies. Whereas the novel Chinese regulations push towards more national sovereignty in cyberspace, the European Union invests in the compensation of BBP under-provision among open source software (OSS). These regulatory changes in China and endeavours by the European Union, respectively, reveal that the prevalent geopolitical divisions in related topics, such as internet governance, continue to play their part. Further research on BBPs is proposed to quantitatively examine their effect on peace and stability.

Willingness to Pay to Improve Quality of Public Healthcare Services in Mauritius.

Mauritius has a universal free healthcare system, based on the Beveridge model which is financed by taxpayers. There are growing considerations over improving quality of healthcare services. The purpose of the study is to employ a contingency valuation (CV) to investigate the willingness of Mauritians people to pay to improve the quality of public healthcare services and the associated determinants using the double-bounded dichotomous choice model. A drop off survey with a sample size of 974 respondents from the working population is used. The empirical analysis shows that the majority of the sample was willing to pay for improving quality of public healthcare services. Other than the conventional determinants of respondents’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, the findings support the assertion that psycho-social constructs such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour, Norm-Activation, Public Good Theory, and Perceived Response Efficacy are found to significantly affect Willingness-to-Pay (WTP). The results of this study might be of use to policymakers to help with both priority setting and fund allocation.

Effects of Financial Inclusion and Awareness Creation on Women Empowerment in Kalawa Ward, Makueni County-Kenya

Despite the ever-increasing number of NGOs in Makueni County aimed at socio-economic empowerment of women, gender inequalities are persistent and poverty levels are high. This is evident by low participation of women in decision making process, control over ownership and access of resources and wealth, increased poverty levels, increased cases of gender-based violence. This has necessitated the need to establish the role of NGOs in women empowerment in Makueni County. The purpose of the study was to establish the role of NGOs in financial inclusion of women and the creation of awareness on property rights for women. The anchor theory for this study is the Women Empowerment Framework by Sara Longwe and the other theories used in the study include Kabeers 3-dimensional model; the public goods theory of financial inclusion. The study population was 60 women groups in Kalawa ward, Makueni County who have benefited from the NGOs programs. The total number of respondents were 1254 and a sample size of 294 was used. The findings revealed that financial inclusion and awareness creation on the right to own resources and property influence women empowerment. The focus group discussions highlighted that the NGOs are doing very little in regards to awareness creation on the right of ownership of resources and property. Women cited that discrimination, being left out of development agenda, illiteracy and patriarchal nature of the society as the major challenge. The study recommendations were that NGOs, National and County Governments should provide linkage to markets for the products from the income generating activities by women groups. Both Government and NGOs should develop frameworks to engage women in development agenda. Keywords: Women Empowerment, Financial Inclusion, Awareness Creation, NGOs, Makueni County.

Site selection of self-driving and recreational vehicle camps in China: An investigation using analytic hierarchy process and entropy

Self-driving and recreational vehicle (RV) camps are a new form of industry module with the integration of transportation and tourism in China, thus the scientific and reasonable site selection plays an important role in the success of camps’ construction and operation. In terms of relying resources and development factors, camps can be divided into five categories: scenic-spot-based, transportation-based, environment-based, project-based and leisure and vacation-based. According to whether it is of excludability and competitiveness, the camps in China mainly embody the attribute of private products. Based on the combination of subjective evaluation and objective calculation, the evaluation model of spatial site selection is constructed and the weight of each index is calculated by using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method and entropy coefficient method. The results show that traffic condition factor is the priority to the selection of campsite, and whether it is on the popular main self-driving route and the grade of trunk roads are the dominant indices. The second factor taken into consideration is the social factors, in which government policy supports and land cost play a key role. The third factor is the market, in which the urban economic level, partnership with the government and tourist resource conditions are of great importance. The fourth factor of the campsite selection includes natural elements, in which the quality of ecological environment and water source conditions are mostly considered. In the future, it is suggested that a camp pattern of “public goods” plus “private goods” should be built and the construction of camps in underdeveloped areas should be highly developed so as to form camp spatial network from individual points to a series of campsite and finally the campsite group in China will be set up. • According to excludability and competitiveness of public goods theory, camps embody the attribute of private products. • The evaluation model of site selection which includes 20 indices of market factors, traffic factors, natural factors and social factors is constructed. • The index weight of site selection is calculated by the combination of subjective AHP and objective entropy method.

From public goods theory to municipal capitalism: Evaluating investments in sport venues from an urban entrepreneurial perspective

ABSTRACT Using public goods theory as a guidepost, scholars have correctly observed that subsidies for sport venues are a product of the monopolistic structure of major sport leagues. Without challenging the observation that economic rent is being extracted from cities, we utilize the municipal capitalism framework to explore the ongoing appeal of teams to cities. We note that rising levels of economic segregation required local officials to aggressively pursue partnerships to offer competitive club goods that deflect regional economic activity into their taxing jurisdictions. After reviewing 116 published academic papers to establish the two frameworks (public goods and municipal capitalism), we use three previously studied case studies to assess outcomes in light of a municipal capitalism perspective. This permits us to provide insights into the use of various sources of public capital to deflect economic activity with the potential to enhance economic development and tax revenues. The work also identifies the need for additional research to compare and contrast classical public goods theory, municipal capitalism, and local government initiatives in an era of “fend for yourself federalism.”

Global justice and the COVID-19 vaccine: Limitations of the public goods framework

ABSTRACT As vaccines for COVID-19 were first being approved for use, there were widespread calls for it to be assigned a ‘global public good’. However, allocating the COVID-19 vaccine globally poses a novel challenge of redistribution, one that cannot be effectively undertaken using current mechanisms for the dispensation of aid. An examination of the origins and implicit logic of global public goods theory shows that it would not be effective as a framework in this context. I argue that while it is a useful rhetorical tool to underscore the need for global access, it fails to account for concerns arising out of structural inequities between countries in the Global South and North. In addition to being ill-defined, the phrase encodes a neoliberal logic – one that prioritises the protection of private capital over democratic claims of redistribution and social justice. To ensure global access, our attention must be focussed instead on explicitly accounting for inequities, securing access for countries in the Global South and addressing the norm-setting powers of pharmaceutical companies.

How to improve sustainability of the Schengen agreement on open borders?

AbstractAt the height of the migration crisis, around 2.4 million asylum claims were submitted in the European Union Member States. The enormous weight of a massive inflow of migrants and immigration‐related threat perceptions prompted Member States to start reintroducing border controls at EU internal borders, which resulted in a ‘temporary suspension’ of the Schengen agreement on open borders. With the use of zero‐sum phenomena and application of public goods theory to asylum policy, the article seeks to explain the influence of a structural limitation of European integration in the form of asymmetric integration of asylum policy on the sustainability of the Schengen agreement on open borders. To eliminate this structural limitation and thus strengthen the sustainability of the Schengen agreement on open borders, the article proposes a fully functioning Common European Asylum System (CEAS) based on a unified asylum system and governed by a centralized EU institution.

PUBLIC GOOD THEORY: A THEORETICAL JUSTIFICATION FOR PERMISSIVE LICENSE TO USE AND RE-USE ORPHAN WORKS

This paper explores the adoption of Paul Samuelson’s Public Good Theory as a theoretical justification for a permissive licensing scheme enabling the use, and re-use orphan works in Malaysia. Orphan works are copyright-protected works with unlocatable or unidentified right holders, and are currently on the rise due to the proliferation of unregistered, anonymous, and abandoned copyright works. The literature denotes the challenges arising from the difficulty faced by potential users in obtaining the permission for creative and innovative use of orphan works as required under Copyright law. Such challenges impede the potential use and re-use of orphan works for the purpose of knowledge dissemination, progress in the arts, preservation and digitisation activities. This paper contributes to the current body of knowledge by canvassing two important issues. The first issue focuses on the challenges faced by potential users to use and re-use orphan works in Malaysia. The second is Paul Samuelson’s Public Good as a theoretical justification for permissive license to use and re-use orphan works. It is anticipated that a legislative reform grounded on Paul Samuelson’s Public Good Theory will spur grassroots innovations, creativity and entrepreneurialism among members of the public. The permissive licensing scheme supports global calls for legislative reform of copyright law to facilitate the use and reuse of orphan works.

An Austrian Re-assement of the Theory of ‘Public Goods’: What Is Left (and Right)?

This chapter is motivated by the following questions: what are the implications of an Austrian reassessment of the theory of public goods? What would be left to say that’s right about public goods? The implicit assumption in the theory of public goods being utilized is to frame it in terms of an outcome of its emergence, and neglects to address the process by which so-called “public goods” emerge. By redirecting our focus on this cumulative process, this sheds light on two important points: the non-rivalrous aspect of public goods are a by-product of overcoming rivalry in the first place, via the endogenous formation of excludability mechanisms. Secondly, and therefore, an Austrian reassessment of the theory of public goods completely transcends the inherent distinction between public and private goods, and with it, negates the economic justification of the state.