论公共物品外文翻译资料

Public Goods

Tyler Cowen

Public goods have two distinct aspects: nonexcludability and nonrivalrous consumption. “Nonexcludability” means that the cost of keeping nonpayers from enjoying the benefits of the good or service is prohibitive. If an entrepreneur stages a fireworks show, for example, people can watch the show from their windows or backyards. Because the entrepreneur cannot charge a fee for consumption, the fireworks show may go unproduced, even if demand for the show is strong.

The fireworks example illustrates the related free-rider problem. Even if the fireworks show is worth ten dollars to each person, arguably few people will pay ten dollars to the entrepreneur. Each person will seek to “free ride” by allowing others to pay for the show, and then watch for free from his or her backyard. If the free-rider problem cannot be solved, valuable goods and services—ones people otherwise would be willing to pay for—will remain unproduced.

The second aspect of public goods is what economists call “nonrivalrous consumption.” Assume the entrepreneur manages to exclude noncontributors from watching the show (perhaps one can see the show only from a private field). A price will be charged for entrance to the field, and people who are unwilling to pay this price will be excluded. If the field is large enough, however, exclusion is inefficient. Even nonpayers could watch the show without increasing the showrsquo;s cost or diminishing anyone elsersquo;s enjoyment. In other words, the relevant consumption is nonrivalrous. Nonetheless, nonexcludability is usually considered the more important of the two aspects of public goods. If the good is excludable, private entrepreneurs will try to serve as many fee-paying customers as possible, charging lower prices to some customers if need be.

One of the best examples of a public good is national defense. To the extent one person in a geographic area is defended from foreign attack or invasion, other people in that same area are likely defended also. This makes it hard to charge people for defense, which means that defense faces the classic free-rider problem. Indeed, almost all economists are convinced that the only way to provide a sufficient level of defense is to have government do it and fund defense with taxes.

Many other problems, though, that are often perceived as public-goods problems are not really, and markets handle them reasonably well. For instance, although many people think a television signal is a public good, cable television services scramble their transmissions so that nonsubscribers cannot receive broadcasts easily. In other words, the producers have figured out how to exclude nonpayers. Both throughout history and today, private roads have been financed by tolls charged to road users. Other goods often seen as public goods, such as private protection and fire services, are frequently sold through the private sector on a fee basis. Excluding nonpayers is possible. In other cases, potentially public goods are funded by advertisements, as happens with television and radio.

Partially public goods also can be tied to purchases of private goods, thereby making the entire package more like a private good. Shopping malls, for instance, provide shoppers with a variety of services that are traditionally considered public goods: lighting, protection services, benches, and restrooms are examples. Charging directly for each of these services would be impractical. Therefore, the shopping mall finances the services through receipts from the sale of private goods in the mall. The public and private goods are “tied” together. Private condominiums and retirement communities also are market institutions that tie public goods to private services. They use monthly membership dues to provide a variety of public services.

Some public goods are provided through fame incentives or through personal motives to do a good job. The World Wide Web offers many millions of home pages and informational sites, and most of their constructors have not received any payment. The writers either want recognition or seek to reach other people for their own pleasure or to influence their thinking.

The “reciprocity motive” is another possible solution, especially in small groups. I may contribute to a collective endeavor as part of a broader strategy to signal that I am a public-minded, cooperative individual. You may then contribute in return, hoping that we develop an ongoing agreement—often implicit—to both contribute over time. The agreement can be self-sustaining if I know that my withdrawal will cause the withdrawal of others as well. A large body of anecdotal and experimental evidence suggests that such arrangements, while imperfect, are often effective. Roommates, for instance, often have implicit or explicit agreements about who will take out the trash or do the dishes. These arrangements are enforced not by contract but rather by the hope of continuing cooperation.

Other problems can be solved by defining individual property rights in the appropriate economic resource. Cleaning up a polluted lake, for instance, involves a free-rider problem if no one owns the lake. If there is an owner, however, that person can charge higher prices to fishermen, boaters, recreational users, and others who benefit from the lake. Privately owned bodies of water are common in the British Isles, where, not surprisingly, lake owners maintain quality.

Well-defined property rights can solve apparent public-goods problems in other environmental areas, such as land use and species preservation. The buffalo neared extinction and the cow did not because cows could be privately owned and husbanded for profit. It is harder to imagine easily enforceable private property rights in schools of fish. Fo

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论公共物品

Tyler Cowen

公共物品有两个不同的方面：非排他性和非竞争性消费。“非排他性”意味着让非付款人享受福利或服务的好处是令人望而却步的。例如，如果一个企业家举办焰火表演，人们可以从他们的窗口或后院观看演出。因为企业家不能为消费收取费用，即使对演出的需求很强烈，烟花表演也可能不生产。

烟花示例说明了相关的搭便车问题。即使焰火表演对每个人来说价值十美元，但很少有人愿意向企业家支付十美元。每个人都会通过允许别人为演出买单，然后从他或她的后院免费观看。如果搭便车的问题无法解决，人们愿意支付的宝贵货物和服务将仍然没有生产。

公共产品的第二个方面是经济学家称之为“非竞争性消费”。假设企业家设法排除非贡献者观看节目（也许人们只能从私人领域看演出）。入场费将收取，不愿意支付此价格的人将被排除在外。然而，如果字段足够大，排除是无效的。即使是不付钱的人也可以观看节目，而不增加节目的费用或减少任何人的享受。换句话说，相关的消费是不可竞争的。然而，非排他性通常被认为是公共物品的两个方面更重要的。如果好处是不可排除的，私人企业家将尽可能多地为付费客户服务，如果需要的话，向某些客户收取更低的价格。

公共利益最好的例子之一就是国防。在一个地理区域中的一个人受到外国攻击或入侵的防御时，同一地区的其他人也有可能进行防御。这使得人们很难为防守充电，这意味着防守面临着经典的搭便车问题。事实上，几乎所有的经济学家都相信，提供足够的防御水平的唯一途径是让政府这样做，并用税收来资助国防。

然而，许多经常被视为公共物品问题的其他问题并不是真的，市场处理得相当好。例如，尽管许多人认为电视信号是一种公共物品，但有线电视服务会干扰他们的传输，使非订户不能轻易接收广播。换句话说，生产商已经找出如何排除非付款人。无论是在历史上还是今天，私人道路都是由收费公路收费的道路使用者。通常被视为公共物品的其他物品，如私人保护和消防服务，通常是通过私人部门以收费的方式出售的。排除非支付者是可能的。在其他情况下，潜在的公共物品是由广告资助的，就像电视和收音机一样。

部分公共物品也可以与私人物品的购买联系在一起，从而使整个包装更像私人物品。购物中心，例如，为购物者提供各种服务，传统上被视为公共物品：照明，保护服务，长凳，和洗手间是例子。直接为这些服务收费是不切实际的。因此，购物中心通过在商场出售私人物品的收据来为这些服务提供资金。公共物品和私人物品是“捆绑在一起”的。私人公寓和退休社区也是将公共物品与私人服务联系起来的市场机构。他们每月使用会费来提供各种各样的公共服务。

一些公共产品通过声誉激励或个人动机来提供良好的工作。万维网提供了数以百万计的主页和信息网站，并且他们的大多数建造者没有收到任何付款。作家要么希望得到认可，要么寻求别人为了自己的快乐或影响他们的思想。

“互惠动机”是另一种可能的解决方案，尤其是在小团体中。作为一个更广泛的战略的一部分，我可以做出集体努力，以表明我是一个具有公共意识、合作的人。然后，你可以贡献回报，希望我们发展一个持续的协议，往往隐含这两个贡献随着时间的推移。如果我知道我的撤退也会导致其他人的撤退，这个协议可以自我维持。大量的轶事和实验证据表明，这样的安排虽然不完善，但通常是有效的。例如，室友通常会含蓄或明确地约定谁会把垃圾拿出去或洗碗。这些安排不是通过合同来执行的，而是希望继续合作。

通过适当的经济资源界定个人产权，可以解决其他问题。例如，如果没有人拥有湖泊，清理一个污染的湖泊会涉及到搭便车的问题。然而，如果有一个拥有者，该人可以向渔民、船夫、娱乐用户和其他受益于湖的人收取更高的价格。在不列颠群岛，私人拥有的水体是很常见的，那里的湖主人保持着质量，这并不奇怪。

明确界定的产权可以解决其他环境领域的明显公共物品问题，如土地利用和物种保护。水牛濒临灭绝，而牛却没有，因为牛可以是私有的，也可以靠赚钱养活。很难想象在鱼群中很容易强制执行私有财产权。因此，我们看到了政府监管和私人决定的配额组合。尽管如此，鱼类种群的枯竭还是一个问题，生物多样性的损失更大。

对于涉及空气的环境问题，很难想象产权是如何被有效地界定和实施的。单凭市场机制可能无法阻止地球臭氧层的枯竭。在这种情况下，经济学家认识到政府监管解决方案的必要性。

合同安排有时可以用来克服否则将是公共物品和外部性问题。如果一家公司的研发活动有益于同行业中的其他公司，这些公司可以汇集他们的资源，并同意共同的项目（反垄断法允许）。每个公司都会支付部分成本，而贡献的公司将分享利益。

合同安排有时会失败。讨价还价和达成协议的成本可能很高。协议的一些各方可能会寻求更好的协议，协议可能会崩溃。在其他情况下，接触和处理协议的所有潜在受益者成本太高。例如，一家工厂可能发现不可能直接与每个受影响的公民谈判以减少污染。

市场解决公共物品问题的缺陷必须权衡政府解决方案的缺陷。政府依赖官僚机构，对不知情的选民作出反应，并无力为消费者服务。因此，它们生产效率低。此外，政治家可以以公共服务的方式提供公共物品，而不是为公众利益服务；浪费政府开支和猪肉桶项目的例子不胜枚举。政府经常通过强迫人们支持他们不想要的项目来制造“强迫骑手”的问题。私人手段避免或转化公共物品问题时，通常是比政府解决方案更有效。

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