The Political Economy of the Local Market for Public Goods: The Role of Entrepreneurs

市政服务提供的标准理论认为，市场力量的运作确保了这些公共产品的有效提供。该论点认为，市场是由公民在不同的市政当局之间“货比三家”，决定在为公民个人提供高服务/低税收的最佳组合的市政当局定居和生活而产生的。然而，这一理论的基础与证据假设相反，即大多数公民对市政服务和税收都很了解，并且个人从一个社区搬到另一个社区以寻找最佳组合相对容易。该奖项支持一项雄心勃勃的研究计划，以测试和完善城市政治经济学的标准蒂布特模型及其基础假设。调查人员将进行一系列调查，以确定个人、企业和政府在为公共产品建立有效的当地市场方面的作用。特别是，他们将研究这样一种可能性，即存在一个公众的子样本，它比正常情况下更了解情况，流动性更强，其成员实际上是流动企业家，通过他们的行动创造市场，从而自动使社区的其他居民受益。该项目还考虑了政治家通过争夺某些类型的企业和某些类型的公民，在创造市场方面发挥积极作用的可能性。这项研究完成后，应能更好地了解美国市政服务提供背后的动力。因此，它应该为判断地方政府提供公共产品的效率和效果建立一个更严格的经验基础。

Standard theories of the provision of municipal services hold that market forces operate to ensure the efficient provision of these public goods. The argument is that a market is created as citizens "shop around" among different municipalities deciding to settle down and live in the municipality that provides the best combination of high services/low taxes for the individual citizen. Underlying this theory, however, are contrary to evidence assumptions that most citizens are well informed about municipal services and taxes and that it is relatively easy for individuals to move from one community to another in search of the optimal combination. This award supports an ambitious program of research to test and refine the standard Tiebout model of urban political economy and the assumptions underlying it. The investigators will conduct a series of surveys to determine the role of individuals, businesses, and governments in the creation of efficient local markets for public goods. In particular, they will examine the possibility that a subsample of the public exists which is much better informed and more mobile than the norm and whose members serve, in effect, as mobility entrepreneurs, creating markets by their actions which benefit automatically other residents of the community. The project also considers the possibility that politicians play active roles in creating markets by competing both for certain kinds of business and certain kinds of citizens as well. When completed this research should provide a better understanding of the dynamics that underlie the provision of municipal services in the United States. It should thereby establish a more rigorous, empirical basis for judging the efficiency and effectiveness of the provision of public goods by local governments.