Optimal Community Composition and the Provision of Local Public Goods

本项目的论点是，地方公共财政理论是基于一个错误指定的地方服务的“生产函数”——它忽略了社区特征在决定公共产出水平方面发挥的重要作用。这种错误的描述既有重要的积极意义，也有规范意义。关于有偏见的价格和收入弹性估计的积极影响一直是文献中一些关注的主题。但其规范含义在很大程度上被忽视了。特别是蒂布特模式的主要结果，即最优的管辖制度的特点是社区对地方服务的需求是一致的，在一个社区构成是当地公共产品产出的重要决定因素的世界里，不再成立。本研究在社区构成影响地方公共产出的背景下发展了地方财政的一般理论。这里的重点是确定地方管辖权的最佳构成如何取决于个人在提供地方公共产品方面的相互作用。本项目以计量经济学的方式研究公共安全的生产函数。它使用现有的数据集来探索社区组成和公共安全水平之间关系的形式。最后，利用特定的效用和生产函数进行了一系列模拟研究，以检验社区组成在地方服务生产中起重要作用的地方司法管辖区的最佳结构。

It is the contention of this project that the theory of local public finance is based on a misspecified "production function" for local services--one that omits the important role that community characteristics play in determining levels of public output. This misspecification has both important positive and normative implications. The positive implications concerning biased estimates of price and income elasticities have been the subject of some attention in the literature. But the normative implications have been largely ignored. In particular, the central results of the Tiebout model, namely that an optimal system of jurisdiction is characterized by communities that are homogeneous in the demand for local services, no longer holds in a world in which community composition is an important determinant of outputs of local public goods. This study develops a general theory of local finance in a setting where community composition influences local public outputs. The focus here is determining how the optimal composition of local jurisdictions depends on the interaction of individuals in the provision of local public goods. This project investigates in econometric terms the production function of public safety. It uses existing data sets to explore the form of the relationship between community composition and the levels of public safety. Finally, a series of simulation studies are made using specific utility and production functions to examine the optimal structure of local jurisdictions where community composition matters in the production of local services.