Markets or Governments, second edition: Choosing between Imperfect Alternatives

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MIT Press, Sep 2, 1993 - Business & Economics - 258 pages
Provides a formal theory of nonmarket failure, analyzing such problems as redundant costs, monopoly, frequency of unanticipated externalities, and bureaucracy in such nonmarket institutions as foundations, universities, and government.

A theory of market failures is well established in economics, but the same has not been true for the study of nonmarket failures. Markets or Governments remedies this situation by providing a formal theory of nonmarket failure, analyzing such problems as redundant costs, monopoly, frequency of unanticipated externalities, and bureaucracy in such nonmarket institutions as foundations, universities, and government. This new edition updates the data and results contained in the first edition and includes references and applications of the theory to the ongoing process of system transformation in Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe. The discussion of earlier literature that is relevant to the theory of nonmarket failure has been expanded.

From inside the book

Contents

Market Failure
17
The Demand and Supply
35
Types Sources
59
Nonmarket Failure and the Analysis of Public
103
The Choice between Markets
155
Appendix A
191
Appendix B
201
Bibliography
213
Index
225
Copyright

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About the author (1993)

Charles Wolf, Jr., is Dean of the RAND Graduate School of Policy Studies and Director of RAND's research program in International Economic Policy.

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