Theories of Local Public Goods Provision

Abstract

Tiebout (1956)’s theory of local public goods provision suggests that decentralized municipal competition leads to an optimal goods provision. However, when Tiebout’s strong theoretical assumptions are relaxed, final allocations are subject to a variety of inefficiencies. This presentation covers Oates (1972) and Besley and Coate (2003) to explore coordination failures, preference matching failures, uncertainty, misallocation, and strategic delegation in the context of decentralized and centralized public goods provision.

David C. Simpson

Political Science Doctoral Candidate

My research interests include Congressional politics, fiscal federalism and institutional inequity.