TY  - JOUR
AU  - Metcalf,Gilbert E.
AU  - Park,Jongsang
TI  - A Comment on The Role of Prices for Excludable Public Goods
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12535
PY  - 2006
Y2  - September 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12535
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12535.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Gilbert E. Metcalf
Room 3221
Department of the Treasury
Washington, DC 20220
1500 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Tel: 202-622-0173
E-Mail: gilbert.metcalf@tufts.edu

Jongsang Park
Department of Economics
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
E-Mail: jongsang.park@gmail.com
AB  - Blomquist and Christensen (2005) argue that welfare is initially decreasing in the price of an excludable public good and that the case for a positive price for an excludable public good price is weak.  We argue that this result follows from their particular characterization of the public good and that an alternative and equally reasonable characterization overturns their result.  Hence the policy case for a positive price on the public good is stronger than Blomquist and Christiansen suggest.  We also provide a flexible characterization of public goods that nests a wide variety of public goods models.
ER  -