Some Consequences of Governmental Provision of Rival Goods

37 Pages Posted: 21 Jan 2014 Last revised: 2 Feb 2014

See all articles by David Hasen

David Hasen

University of Florida Levin College of Law

Date Written: January 20, 2014

Abstract

Much of the work in public finance assumes that taxes either pay for pure public goods or finance redistribution. Under this assumption, optimal taxation would be of the lump-sum variety, and the evaluation of actual tax systems becomes an exercise in determining the extent to which the requirement of using inferior tax instruments, together with other constraints, creates deadweight loss. In practice, however, many goods commonly funded with general tax revenues are rival in nature and, to that extent, mimic market-supplied goods in terms of the costs that their provision imposes and the benefits that their provision bestows. For such goods, lump-sum taxation is not an ideal.

This paper explores some of the tax ramifications of government provision of rival goods. It also examines second-best problems arising in the transition from funding for such goods through generally-applicable taxes such as income taxes to taxes that better internalize the costs of supplying the goods.

Keywords: taxation, public finance

JEL Classification: H1, H11, H2, H21, H22, H4, K34

Suggested Citation

Hasen, David, Some Consequences of Governmental Provision of Rival Goods (January 20, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2382255 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2382255

David Hasen (Contact Author)

University of Florida Levin College of Law ( email )

P.O. Box 117625
Gainesville, FL 32611-7625
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.law.ufl.edu/faculty/david-hasen

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
65
Abstract Views
758
Rank
617,745
PlumX Metrics