Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T17:55:15.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Goods (and Federalism): A Reply*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Albert Breton
Albert Breton*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Notes
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , May 1966 , pp. 238 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Robert A. Mundell for a helpful discussion of the issues involved and Harry G. Johnson for his comments. They are not, of course, to be held responsible for the positions I have chosen to defend.

References

1 This Journal, XXXI, no. 2 (May 1965), 175–87.

2 It should perhaps be stressed that this last issue is related to the conceptual framework I developed to discuss the question of government grants and not to that question itself. In other words, Weldon raises definitional problems and not problems of content; however, if one did accept his remarks, the substance of my argument about grants would probably be changed, but in some unspecified and unknown way. This, indeed, is one or the major difficulties with Weldon's effort to steer the subject back to the traditional approach.

3 If Weldon insists that they do not meet these conditions, then he is certainly wrong in writing in his utility functions, unless he defines these goods in some empirically meaningful way.

4 In a number of places (on page 230 and in note 22) Weldon uses such phrases as “not operational” and Thow we measure these things.” I suggest that he apply these criteria to his alternatives to see how well they perfom. I have a strong suspicion that they do not pass these tests with flying colours!

5 I have defined these goods as goods “which, though not available equally to all, have the property that the amount available to one individual does not reduce that available to others by an equal amount.” “A Theory of Government Grants,” 177.

6 A distinction which clearly indicates that Weldon recognizes the presence of indivisibilities in the flow of some goods.