en pl
en pl

Decyzje

Zobacz wydanie
Rok 12/2014 
Numer 24

Investment in public capital, distribution, and governance

Martin McGuire
University of California

12/2014 (24) Decyzje

DOI 10.7206/DEC.1733-0092.64

Abstrakt

How does the redistribution of income that a regime prescribes for society and the amount of public-good social-overhead investment it provides depend on the nature of that regime? And how do these influence said society’s productive success? Connections among these phenomena informed much of Mancur Olson’s (1982, 1991) life-work now so foundational to the literature on redistributive politics, economic growth/prosperity, and the nature of regimes. Still a transparent simple account of how the nature of a regime determines trade-offs between transfers and public capital investment can improve the foundations and clarify anomalies present in the literature. Here we elaborate a model to address these questions and we prove, contrary to received wisdom, that redistribution can reduce or actually and unexpectedly increase supplies of public overhead capital. Redistributive taxation reduces
capital productivity, which incentivizes governments to supply less. But,
contrary to conventional wisdom, redistribution can also so deplete the tax
base that to offset some of the loss government will actually invest more in the
way of public-overhead factor inputs than would a less redistributive regime of
an otherwise comparable society.

Powiązania

  1. Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson, and Pierre Yared. (2008). Income and Democracy. American Economic Review, 98 (3), 808–842. [Google Scholar]
  2. Acemoglu, Daron. (2008). Oligarchic Vs. Democratic Societies. Journal of the European Economic Association, 6(1), 1–44. [Google Scholar]
  3. Acemoglu, Daron, Suresh Naidu, Pascual Restrepo and James A. Robinson. (2013). Democracy, Redistribution and Inequality. Working Paper No. 19746. National Bureau of Economic Research. [Google Scholar]
  4. Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson. (2006). Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. New York NY: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]
  5. Aghion, Phillipe, Alberto Alesina, and Francisco Trebbi. (2008). Democracy, Technology, and Growth. In: Institutions and Economic Performance. Elhanan Helpman, ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]
  6. Aiyagari, S. Rao, John D. Lawrence, and Martin Eichenbaum. (1992). The Output, Employment, and Interest Rate Effects of government Consumption. Journal of Monetary Economics, 30, 73-86. [Google Scholar]
  7. Akerlof, G and W. D. Nordhaus. (1967). Balanced Growth --- A Razor’s Edge? International Economic Review, 83, 343. [Google Scholar]
  8. Alesina, Alberto and Dani Rodrik. (1994). Distributive Politics and Economic Growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 109 (2), 465–490. [Google Scholar]
  9. Arrow, Kenneth. J., and Mordecai. Kurz. (1970). Public Investment, The Rate of Return, and Optimal Fiscal Policy. Baltimore, MD: Resources for the Future, The Johns Hopkins Press. [Google Scholar]
  10. Banfield, Edward. (1958). The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. [Google Scholar]
  11. Barro, Robert J. (1990). Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth. Journal of Political Economy, 98(5, Part 2), S103-25. [Google Scholar]
  12. Barro, Robert J. (1999). Determinants of Democracy. Journal of Political Economy, 107(S6), 158–183. Barro, Robert J. and Xavier Sala-i-Martin. (1996). Economic Growth. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. [Google Scholar]
  13. Barzel, Yoram. (2002). A Theory of the State: Economic Rights, Legal Rights, and the Scope of the State. New York, NY, Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]
  14. Benabou, Roland. (1996). Inequality and Growth. NBER Macroeconomics Annual, 1996, 11-92. [Google Scholar]
  15. Brennan, Geoffrey and James. M. Buchanan. (1977). Toward a Tax Constitution for Leviathan. Journal of Public Economics, 8, 255-74. [Google Scholar]
  16. Cheibub, Jose, Jennifer Gandhi Antonio, and James R. Vreeland. (2010). Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited. Public Choice, 143(1-2), 67–101. [Google Scholar]
  17. Cornes, Richard and Todd Sandler. (2000). Pareto-Improving Redistribution and Pure Public Goods. German Economic Review, 1(2), 169-186. [Google Scholar]
  18. Diamond, Peter. A., and James A. Mirlees. (1971). Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: Production Efficiency. American Economic Review, 61, 8-27. [Google Scholar]
  19. Engineer, Merwan. (1989). Taxes, Public Goods, and the Ruling Class: An Exploration of the Territory Between Brennan and Buchanan’s Leviathan and Conventional Public Finance. Public Finance, 44, 19-30. [Google Scholar]
  20. Engineer, Merwan. (1990). Brennan and Buchanan’s Leviathan Models. The Social Science Journal, 27(4), 419-33. [Google Scholar]
  21. Hillman, Arye. and Heinrich Ursprung. (2000). Political Culture and Economic Decline. European Journal of Political Economy, 16(2), 189-213. [Google Scholar]
  22. Hirshleifer, Jack. (1995). Anarchy and its Breakdown. Journal of Political Economy, 26-52. [Google Scholar]
  23. Hobbes, Thomas. (1651). Leviathan. London: Andrew Crooke, at the Green Dragon in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Republished by The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leviathan. http://www.gutenberg. org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm [Google Scholar]
  24. Itaya, Jun-Ichi, David de Meza, and Gareth. D. Myles. (1997). In Praise of Inequality: Public Good Provision and Income Distribution. Economic Letters, 57, 289-96. [Google Scholar]
  25. Karras, George. (1996). The Optimal Government Size: Further International Evidence on the Productivity of Government Services. Economic Inquiry, 34(April), 193-203. [Google Scholar]
  26. McGuire, Martin C. (1982). Regulation, Factor Rewards and International Trade. Journal of Public Economics, 17(3), 335-354. [Google Scholar]
  27. McGuire, Martin C. and Mancur L. Olson. (1996). The Economics of Autocracy and Majority Rule: The Invisible Hand and the Use of Force. Journal of Economic Literature, 72-96. [Google Scholar]
  28. Mulligan, Casey and Xavier Sala-i-Martin. (1997). The Optimum Quantity of Money: Theory and Evidence. Journal of Money Credit, and Banking, 29(4), 687. [Google Scholar]
  29. Niskanen, William A. (1997). Autocratic, Democratic, and Optimal Government. Economic Inquiry, 35(3), 464-79. [Google Scholar]
  30. Olson, Mancur L. (1991). Autocracy, Democracy, and Prosperity. In: Strategy and Choice (pp.131157). Richard J. Zeckhauser, ed. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. [Google Scholar]
  31. Olson, Mancur L. (1982). The Rise and Decline of Nations. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]
  32. Papaioannou, Elias and Gregorios Siourounis. (2008). Democratisation and Growth. Economic Journal, 118(532), 1520–1551. [Google Scholar]
  33. Persson, Torsten and Guido Tabellini. (1994). Is Inequality Harmful to Growth? American Economic Review, 84(3), 600–621. [Google Scholar]
  34. Persson, Torsten and Guido Tabellini. (2006). Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details. American Economic Review, 96(2), 319–324. [Google Scholar]
  35. Persson, Torsten and Guido Tabellini. (2008). The Growth Effects of Democracy: Is it Heterogeneous and How Can It Be Estimated? In: Institutions and Economic Performance. Elhanan Helpman, ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]
  36. Persson, Torsten and Guido Tabellini. (2009). Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 1(2), 88–126. [Google Scholar]
  37. Przeworski, Adam and Fernando Limongi. (1993). Political Regimes and Economic Growth. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7(3): 51–69. [Google Scholar]
  38. Sandler, Todd. (1992). Collective Action: Theory and Applications. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. [Google Scholar]
  39. Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1942). Socialism, Capitalism, and Democracy. New York, NY: Harper. [Google Scholar]
  40. Wintrobe, Ronald. (1990). The Tinpot and the Totalitarian: An Economic Theory of Dictatorship. American Political Science Review, 84(3), 849-72. [Google Scholar]
  41. Wintrobe, Ronald. (1998). The Political Economy of Dictatorship. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]

Kompletne metadane

Cytowanie zasobu

APA style

McGuire, Martin (2015). Investment in public capital, distribution, and governance. (2015). Investment in public capital, distribution, and governance. Decyzje, (24), 123-154. https://doi.org/10.7206/DEC.1733-0092.64 (Original work published 12/2014n.e.)

MLA style

McGuire, Martin. „Investment In Public Capital, Distribution, And Governance”. 12/2014n.e. Decyzje, nr 24, 2015, ss. 123-154.

Chicago style

McGuire, Martin. „Investment In Public Capital, Distribution, And Governance”. Decyzje, Decyzje, nr 24 (2015): 123-154. doi:10.7206/DEC.1733-0092.64.