Swords and Plowshares: Property Rights, Collective Action, and Nonstate Governance in the Jewish Community of Palestine 1920–1948

American Political Science Review ◽

10.1017/s0003055421000526 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-15

Author(s):

DAVID MUCHLINSKI

Keyword(s):

Property Rights ◽

Public Goods ◽

Jewish Community ◽

Causal Effect ◽

Public Goods Provision ◽

Public And Private ◽

Private Goods ◽

Agricultural Communities ◽

Institutional Variation ◽

Subnational Governance

Developing states lacking a monopoly over the use of force are commonly seen as having failed to live up to the ideal Weberian sovereign type. Yet rather than being a calling card of anarchy, the devolution of important state functions to subnational actors is a rational strategy for developing states to effectively provide important public goods. The case study of the Jewish Community of Palestine demonstrates one instance where subnational communities provided public goods. This study highlights the causal effect of property rights within institutions to drive behavior consistent with the provision of public and private goods. Analyzing temporal and institutional variation across two agricultural communities demonstrates a unique strategy of subnational governance and public goods provision in a developing state. Devolution of public goods provision to subnational actors may be an alternative strategy of governance for developing states that are not yet able to effectively provide important public goods.

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Welfare Maximization: Samuelson's Analysis with Public and Private Goods

Public Finance Quarterly ◽

10.1177/109114217300100406 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 1 (4) ◽

pp. 426-436

Author(s):

George M. Von Furstenberg

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Pareto Optimality ◽

Private Consumption ◽

Consumer Welfare ◽

The Other ◽

Public And Private ◽

Private Goods ◽

Welfare Maximization ◽

Pareto Efficient ◽

Geometric Techniques

Samuelson (1955) and Bator (1957) have provided geometric techniques for deriving or illustrating the conditions for Pareto-optimality in exchange and production. Bator's approach merely serves to illustrate what the distribution of private consumption and of consumer welfare must be if it is to make any arbitrarily chosen output combination Pareto-efficient. Samuelson. on the other hand, derives the Pareto-efficient output configuration, given a constraint on the welfare of one of two individuals. Even though Samuelson's approach makes the better use of the geometry, Bator's demonstration was the first to be extended from private to public goods (by McLure, 1968). The reverse extension of Samuelson's model, from public to private goods, is attempted in this note.

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Optimality Conditions for Public and Private Goods

Public Finance Quarterly ◽

10.1177/109114217900700305 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 338-351

Author(s):

John A. Weymark

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Optimality Conditions ◽

Optimal Consumption ◽

Public And Private ◽

Private Goods ◽

Optimal Scale ◽

Simultaneous Choice

In general, the optimal provision of a good requires the simultaneous choice of (a)the optimal scale of output given the proportions in which consumers are allocated this total, and (b)the optimal consumption shares given the total available. With public goods the shares are not variable. The usual optimality conditions for private goods collapse (a) and (b) together. Here a general optimality rule for (a) is developed and related to the traditional efficiency rules for public and private goods.

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Complex private-common property rights in institutional and planning theories

Planning Theory ◽

10.1177/1473095219874832 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 193-213

Author(s):

Aleksandar D Slaev

Keyword(s):

Property Rights ◽

Complex Systems ◽

Public Goods ◽

Common Property ◽

Social Structures ◽

Private Goods ◽

Multilevel Structure ◽

Individual Use ◽

The Individual ◽

Patterns Of Interaction

This research focuses on a substantial gap between theories of institutions and property rights: institutions are accepted as complex social structures, but property rights are generally considered as simple, that is, either private or public. Although usually unacknowledged, this simplified understanding of property rights is actually based on Samuelson’s theory developed six decades ago. According to Samuelson, the inherent characteristics of goods determine whether they are privately or collectively consumed commodities. Although Samuelson does not propose a mandatory unambiguous link between types of consumption and types of ownership, his theory implies that in principle, private goods are consumed and owned privately and public goods are consumed and owned publicly. Thus, in Samuelson’s theory, institutions are redundant. This article maintains that people need institutions and organisations because resources are scarce, and most resources are too expensive for individual use/consumption. To access such resources, people form groups and create organisations and institutions, thereby reducing the individual costs of use and consumption. As complex systems, institutions generate complex property rights – common/collective to the members of an organisation, but private to that organisation (the union of members). Furthermore, institutions determine the patterns of interaction between planning and the market (as the two main mechanisms of exercising property rights) at all levels of the multilevel structure of organisations and society. The article argues that Buchanan’s theory of clubs offers a more accurate explanation of the nature of property rights as relevant to institutions.

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Grosser Wert und wenig Geld? Über die Honorierung von Waldleistungen | Highly Valuable But Hardly Remunerative? On Compensating Forest Benefits

Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Forstwesen ◽

10.3188/szf.1999.0041 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 150 (2) ◽

pp. 41-48 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ingrid Kissling-Näf

Keyword(s):

Social Change ◽

Property Rights ◽

Social Welfare ◽

Public Goods ◽

Market Failure ◽

Public Funding ◽

Forest Products ◽

Marketing Strategies ◽

Economic Perspective ◽

Financial Compensation

Forests provide people with a variety of services and products (protection against avalanches, walking trails, etc.). Most forest services and products are not provided by markets and the extent of their availability is often guaranteed by public funding. In this context, the question arises whether the high benefits derived from forests could not be converted into cash more easily. Looking at various explanations for the market failure (externalities, public goods, property rights) possible marketing strategies for forest products and services and how they could optimize social welfare are investigated. Although general compensation criteria are not available, economic concepts (type of externality, scarcity, etc.) provide a first clue as to the necessity of compensation. However, mention must be made that compensation is always the result of a social agreement, and financial compensation as well as property rights are subject to social change. From a political and an economic perspective the payment of compensation for forest benefits is limited.

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