Towards a new theory of global public economics
We live in a time when challenges of the global public good type, continue to multiply: long-standing ones like climate change mitigation, financial stability, communicable disease control or eradication linger unresolved, and new challenges—such as the uncertainties associated with the dawning new technological age—are emerging. Yet what countries are willing to do for GPGs out of national, private or personal interests does often not suffice to ensure an adequate provision of these goods. It is then the responsibility of the academic community, according to Inge Kaul, to step forward with new concepts, including incentive-compatible ways, to better combine global needs with national interests.
Why We Need a Global Public Economics
By: Inge Kaul – Institute for New Economic Thinking
Environmental public goods and inequality
In this paper Baumgärtner and al. using a CES utility function where individual households have identical preferences over a market-traded private consumption good and a non-market-traded pure public environmental good find that willingness to pay for environmental goods decreases with income inequality if and only if environmental goods and manufactured goods are substitutes.
Income inequality and willingness to pay for environmental public goods
Authors: Stefan Baumgärtner, Moritz A. Drupp, Jasper Meya, Jan Munz, Martin F. Quaas
From: University of Freiburg, University of Kiel, Humboldt University Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin
Immigration as a public good
Why did Germany open its borders for Syrian refugees in 2015?
By highlighting how free-riding and burden-shifting dynamics can undermine the provision of collective goods during a refugee crisis, a public goods approach can advance our understanding of why countries sometimes accept disproportionate responsibilities for forced migrants and how the effectiveness of EU refugee burden-sharing instruments can, and should, be strengthened.
Why Refugee Burden-Sharing Initiatives Fail: Public Goods,Free-Riding and Symbolic Solidarity in the EU
Author: Eiko Thielmann
From: LSE
