everything.study
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Independent Study: Urban Studies and Planning

Units arranged [P/D/F] · Graduate

Opportunity for independent study under regular supervision by a faculty member.

Spring 2009 · Advanced Urban Public Finance: Collective Action and Provisions of Local Public Goods

In analyzing fiscal issues, conventional public finance approaches focus mainly on taxation and public spending. Policymakers and practitioners rarely explore solutions by examining the fundamental problem: the failure of interested parties to act collectively to internalize the positive externalities generated by public goods. Public finance is merely one of many possible institutional arrangements for assigning the rights and responsibilities to public goods consumption. This system is currently under stress because of the financial crisis. The first part of the class will focus on collective action and its connection with local public finance. The second part will explore alternative institutional arrangements for mediating collective action problems associated with the provision of local public goods. The objective of the seminar is to broaden the discussion of local public finance by incorporating collective action problems into the discourse. This inclusion aims at exploring alternative institutional arrangements for financing local public services in the face of severe economic downturn. Applications of emerging ideas to the provision of public health, education, and natural resource conservation will be discussed.

Readings

  • Olson, Mancur. The Logic of Collective Action . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, chapters 1-3. ISBN: 9780674537514.
    Listed reading
  • Hardin, Garret. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162 (1968): 1243-48.
    Listed reading
  • Olson, Mancur. The Logic of Collective Action . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, chapters 4-6. ISBN: 9780674537514.
    Listed reading
  • Buchanan, James M. “An Economic Theory of Clubs.” Economica 32 (1965): 1-14.
    Listed reading
  • Cornes, Richard, and Todd Sandler. The Theory of Externalities, Public Goods, and Club Goods . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780521477185.
    Listed reading
  • Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1990, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780521405997.
    Listed reading
  • Tiebout, Charles M. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” Journal of Political Economy 64 (1956): 416-24.
    Listed reading
  • Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. Social Theory: Its Situation and Its Task . Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2004, chapters 1-5. ISBN: 9781844675159.
    Listed reading
  • Sen, Amartya K. “Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 6, no. 4 (1977): 317-344.
    Listed reading
  • Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature . New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1986. ISBN: 9780140432442.
    Listed reading
  • Miller, Byron. “Collective Action and Rational Choice: Place, Community, and the Limits to Individual Self-Interest.” Economic Geography 68 (1992): 22-42.
    Listed reading
  • Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. Social Theory: Its Situation and Its Task . Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2004, chapters 6-8. ISBN: 9781844675159.
    Listed reading
  • Bimber, Bruce, Andrew J. Flanagin, and Cynthia Stohl. “Reconceptualizing Collective Action in the Contemporary Media Environment.” Communication Theory 14, no. 4 (2005): 365-388.
    Listed reading
  • Habermas, J. The Theory of Communicative Action . Vol. I. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780807015063.
    Listed reading
  • ———. The Theory of Communicative Action . Vol. II. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1987.
    Listed reading
  • Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation . New York, NY: Basic Book, 1984, chapters 1-4, 6, and 7.
    Listed reading
  • Axelrod, Robert. The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780691015675.
    Listed reading
  • Ostrom, Elinor. “Collective Action and Local Development Process.” Sociologica 3 (2007): 1-32.
    Listed reading
  • Sandler, T. Collective Action: Theory and Application . Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780472065011.
    Listed reading
  • Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation . New York, NY: Basic Book, 1984, chapters 8 and 9.
    Listed reading
  • Ostrom, Elinor. “Building Trust to Solve Commons Dilemmas: Taking Small Steps to Test an Evolving Theory of Collective Action.” In Games, Groups, and the Global Good . Edited by Simon Levin. New York, NY: Springer, 2009. ISBN: 9783540854357.
    Listed reading
  • Bolton, G. E., and A. Ockenfels. “A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition.” American Economic Review 90 (2000): 166-193.
    Listed reading
  • Gambetta, Diego, ed. “Can We Trust Trust?” In Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations . Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1990. ISBN: 9780631175872.
    Listed reading
  • Hardin, Russell. “Trust and Society.” In Competition and Structure: The Political Economy of Collective Decisions: Essays in Honor of Albert Breton . Edited by Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon, and Ronald Wintrobe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780521088206.
    Listed reading
  • Misztal, Barbara. Trust in Modern Societies: The Search for the Bases of Social Order . Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780745616346.
    Listed reading
  • Ostrom, Elinor. “Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 3 (2000): 137-158.
    Listed reading
  • ———. Trust and Reciprocity: Interdisciplinary Lessons for Experimental Research . New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation Publications, 2005. ISBN: 9780871546487.
    Listed reading
  • Andreoni, James. “Privately Provided Public Goods in a Large Economy: The Limits to Altruism.” Journal of Public Economics 35 (1988): 57-73.
    Listed reading
  • Lange, Andreas, John A. List, and Michael K. Price. Using Tontines to Finance Public Goods: Back to the Future? Working paper 10958. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004.
    Listed reading
  • Sugden, Robert. “Reciprocity: The Supply of Public Goods through Voluntary Contributions.” The Economic Journal 94, no. 376 (1984): 772-787.
    Listed reading
  • Andreoni, James. “Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving.” The Economic Journal 100 (1990): 464-77.
    Listed reading
  • Bergstrom, T. C., L. Blume, and H. R. Varian. “On the Private Provision of Public Goods.” Journal of Public Economics 29, no. 1 (1986): 25-49.
    Listed reading
  • Bochet, O., T. Page, and L. Putterman. “Communication and Punishment in Voluntary Contribution Experiments.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 60 (2006): 11-26.
    Listed reading
  • Sugden, Robert. “On the Economics of Philanthropy.” The Economic Journal 92 (1982): 341-50.
    Listed reading
  • Ye, Maoliang, Plamen Nikolov, Lorenzo Casaburi, and Sam Asher. “Do Threshold Patterns Matter in Public Goods Provision?” Social Science Research Network (2008). Harvard University, unpublished manuscript.
    Listed reading
  • Davis, Gina, and Elinor Ostrom. “A Public Economy Approach to Education: Choice and Co-Production.” International Political Science Review/Revue internationale de science politique 12, no. 4 (1991): 313-335.
    Listed reading
  • Mesch, Gustavo S., and Kent P. Schwirian. “The Effectiveness of Neighborhood Collective Action.” Social Problems 43, no. 4 (1996): 467-483.
    Listed reading
  • Schaeffer, Peter V., and Scott Loveridge. “Toward an Understanding of Types of Public-private Cooperation.” Public Performance and Management Review 26, no. 2 (2002): 169-189.
    Listed reading
  • Hong, Yu-Hung, and Barrie Needham, eds. Analyzing Land Readjustment: Economics, Law, and Collective Action . Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2007. ISBN: 9781558441644.
    Listed reading
  • Ostrom, Elinor, Larry Schroeder, and Susan Wynne. “Analyzing the Performance of Alternative Institutional Arrangements for Sustaining Rural Infrastructure in Developing Countries.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 3, no. 1 (1993): 11-45.
    Listed reading
  • Bazzoli, Gloria J., Rebecca Stein, Jeffrey A. Alexander, Douglas A. Conrad, Shoshanna Sofaer, and Stephen M. Shortell. “Public-private Collaboration in Health and Human Service Delivery: Evidence from Community Partnerships.” The Milbank Quarterly 75, no. 4 (1997): 533-561.
    Listed reading
  • Browning, Christopher R., and Kathleen A. Cagney. “Neighborhood Structural Disadvantage, Collective Efficacy, and Self-Rated Physical Health in an Urban Setting.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 43, no. 4 (2002): 383-399.
    Listed reading
  • Mintz, Beth. “Business Participation in Health Care Policy Reform: Factors Contributing to Collective Action within the Business Community.” Social Problems 42, no. 3 (1995): 408-428.
    Listed reading
  • Flocks, Joan, Leslie Clarke, Stan Albrecht, Carol Bryant, Paul Monaghan, and Holly Baker. “Implementing a Community-based Social Marketing Project to Improve Agricultural Worker Health.” Environmental Health Perspectives 109, no. 3 (2001): 461-468.
    Listed reading
  • Schwartz, Brian S., Cindy Parker, Thomas A. Glass, and Howard Hu. “Global Environmental Change: What Can Health Care Providers and the Environmental Health Community Do About It Now?” Environmental Health Perspectives 114, no. 12 (2006): 1807-1812.
    Listed reading
  • Cole, Daniel. “Climate Change and Collective Action.” Current Legal Problems 61 (2009): 229-264. (forthcoming) (Also forthcoming in The Road from Kyoto: Toward a More Realistic Climate Regime published by Cambridge University Press, 2009)
    Listed reading
  • Lubell, Mark, Mark Schneider, John T. Scholz, and Mihriye Mete. “Watershed Partnerships and the Emergence of Collective Action Institutions.” American Journal of Political Science 46, no. 1 (2002): 148-163.
    Listed reading
  • Ostrom, Elinor. “Design Principles of Robust Property Rights Institutions: What Have We Learned?” In Property Rights and Land Policies . Edited by Gregory K. Ingram and Yu-Hung Hong. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2009. ISBN: 9781558441880.
    Listed reading
  • Agarwal, Bina. “Conceptualising Environmental Collective Action: Why Gender Matters.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 24 (2000): 283-310.
    Listed reading
  • Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1990, chapters 3-5. ISBN: 9780521405997.
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: Permission of instructor G (Fall, IAP, Spring, Summer) Units arranged [P/D/F] Can be repeated for credit.

Sources