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Thanks, J. Barkley, for your post. I went back and looked at the Head
paper,
which discusses the section in the Samuelson article to which you refer. I
also
looked at the Samuelson paper. Head acknowledges that Samuelson associates
collective consumption goods with "external effects," which gives rise to a
free rider problem. Samuelson wrote that "external effects" are "basic to
the
very notion of collective consumption goods."(389)
Head goes on to point out that in the earlier econ literature (he refers to
Sidgwick and Ellis and Fellner), external effects were associated with
a "divorce of scarcity from effective ownership." Then he introduces the
term "nonappropriability" to refer the impossibility of private firms or
individuals "to appropriate the full benefits...arising directly from their
production and/or consumption of certain goods." He goes on to
discuss "ownership difficulties."(203-4)
Head points out that Samuelson's public goods exhibit this characteristic.
But
in my reading, Head's exercise is not simply a repeat of Samuelson. On the
contrary it is an insightful interpretation that Samuelson did not himself
make.
I would argue that it is precisely this interpretation that opened the door
to
the developments in the theory of property rights that have led to the
current
textbook definition. Had we followed Samuelson, we would be defining public
goods mathematically and technically instead of asking questions about the
optimal set of institutions and rights to control resources.
I stand by my original "humble" description of the history. But let me
change
hats to that of a not-so-humble historian of thought (or what the grumblers
would call a "whig" historian). In my view, Coase, while not focussing on
public goods to any great degree, is the giant in this field because he
initiated the revolution in thinking that led at least some economists to
couch
all market failure problems in terms of the obstacles individuals face in
reaching the optimal solution through exchanging rights to control actions.
Looked at in this way, the prospective interventionist must ask how the
intervention will affect (1) the existing configuration of (a) rights to
control actions and (b) rights to exchange control over actions and (2)
actions
that will be taken under the various configurations.
I see nothing in Samuelson that even hints of this. On the contrary, one
who
follows Samuelson would seem more likely to pigeonhole public goods
problems
and proposed interventionist solutions into mathematically-defined classes.
Samuelson, Paul, "A Note on the Pure Theory of Consumer's Behavior,"
Economica,
1938.
Head, J. G., "Public Goods and Public Policy," Public Finance, Vol. 17,
1962.
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