The Microeconomics of Public Policy Analysis

Höfundur: Lee S. Friedman (Útgáfa: 0)
The Microeconomics of Public Policy Analysis

Kaup valmöguleikar

This book shows, from start to finish, how microeconomics can and should be used in the analysis of public policy problems. It is an exciting new way to learn microeconomics, motivated by its application to important, real-world issues. Lee Friedman's modern replacement for his influential 1984 work not only brings the issues addressed into the present but develops all intermediate microeconomic theory to make this book accessible to a much wider audience.

Friedman offers the microeconomic tools necessary to understand policy analysis of a wide range of matters of public concern--including the recent California electricity crisis, welfare reform, public school finance, global warming, health insurance, day care, tax policies, college loans, and mass transit pricing. These issues are scrutinized through microeconomic models that identify policy strengths, weaknesses, and ideas for improvements.

Each chapter begins with explanations of several fundamental microeconomic principles and then develops models that use and probe them in analyzing specific public policies. The book has two primary and complementary goals. One is to develop skills of economic policy analysis: to design, predict the effects of, and evaluate public policies. The other is to develop a deep understanding of microeconomics as an analytic tool for application--its strengths and extensions into such advanced techniques as general equilibrium models and pricing methods for natural monopolies and its weaknesses, such as behavioral inconsistencies with utility-maximization models and its limits in comparing institutional alternatives.

Nánar um bókina

Útgefandi
Princeton University Press
ISBN
9781400885701
Print ISBN
9780691089348
Format
Page Fidelity (PDF)
Útgáfa
0
Höfundar
Lee S. Friedman
Tungumál
English
Útgefið
2017-02-15
Prent takmörkun á líftíma
100
Prent takmörkun
2
Afritunar takmörkun
2

Kaflar

  • Title
  • Copyright
  • Dedication
  • CONTENTS
  • ALTERNATIVE COURSE DESIGNS
  • PREFACE
  • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • PART ONE MICROECONOMIC MODELS FOR PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS
  • Chapter 1 Introduction to Microeconomic Policy Analysis
  • Policy Analysis and Resource Allocation
  • The Diverse Economic Activities of Governments
  • Policy-Making and the Roles of Microeconomic Policy Analysis
  • Organization of the Book
  • Conclusion
  • Chapter 2 An Introduction to Modeling: Demand, Supply, and Benefit-Cost Reasoning
  • Modeling: A Basic Tool of Microeconomic Policy Analysis
  • Demand, Supply, and Benefit-Cost Reasoning
  • Monday Morning, 6:45 A.M.
  • Monday Morning, 9:00 A.M.
  • Summary
  • Discussion Questions
  • Chapter 3 Utility Maximization, Efficiency, and Equity
  • A Model of Individual Resource Allocation
  • Efficiency
  • The General Concept
  • Efficiency with an Individualistic Interpretation
  • Efficiency in a Model of an Exchange Economy
  • A Geometric Representation of the Model
  • Relative Efficiency
  • Equity
  • Equality of Outcome Is One Concept of Equity
  • Equality of Opportunity Is Another Concept of Equity
  • Integrating Equity-Efficiency Evaluation in a Social Welfare Function^S
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Appendix: Calculus Models of Consumer Exchange^O
  • PART TWO USING MODELS OF INDIVIDUAL CHOICE-MAKING IN POLICY ANALYSIS
  • Chapter 4 The Specification of Individual Choice Models for the Analysis of Welfare Programs
  • Standard Argument: In-Kind Welfare Transfers Are Inefficient
  • Responses to Income and Price Changes
  • Response to Income Changes
  • Response to Changes in a Good’s Price
  • Response to Price Changes of Related Goods
  • Choice Restrictions Imposed by Policy
  • Food Stamp Choice Restriction: The Maximum Allotment
  • Food Stamp Choice Restriction: The Resale Prohibition
  • Public Housing Choice Restrictions^S
  • Income Maintenance and Work Efforts
  • The Labor-Leisure Choice
  • Work Disincentives of Current Welfare Programs
  • The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
  • Interdependent Preference Arguments: In-Kind Transfers May Be Efficient^S
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Appendix: The Mathematics of Income and Substitution Effects^O
  • Chapter 5 The Analysis of Equity Standards: An Intergovernmental Grant Application
  • Equity Objectives
  • Intergovernmental Grants
  • Design Features of a Grant Program
  • Income Effects and Nonmatching Grants
  • Price Effects and Matching Grants
  • The Role of Choice Restrictions
  • Alternative Specifications of Recipient Choice-Making
  • Equity in School Finance
  • The Equity Defects Identified in Serrano
  • The Design of Wealth-Neutral Systems
  • Other Issues of School Finance Equity
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Appendix: An Exercise in the Use of a Social Welfare Function as an Aid in Evaluating School Finance
  • Chapter 6 The Compensation Principle of Benefit-Cost Reasoning: Benefit Measures and Market Demands
  • The Compensation Principle of Relative Efficiency
  • The Purpose of a Relative Efficiency Standard
  • The Hicks-Kaldor Compensation Principle
  • Controversy over the Use of the Compensation Principle
  • Measuring Benefits and Costs: Market Statistics and Consumer Surplus
  • An Illustrative Application: Model Specification for Consumer Protection Legislation^S
  • Problems with Measuring Individual Benefit^S
  • Three Measures of Individual Welfare Change
  • Empirical Evidence: Large Differences among the Measures
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Appendix: Duality, the Cobb-Douglas Expenditure Function, and Measures of Individual Welfare^O
  • Chapter 7 Uncertainty and Public Policy
  • Expected Value and Expected Utility
  • Risk Control and Risk-Shifting Mechanisms
  • Risk-Pooling and Risk-Spreading
  • Policy Aspects of Risk-Shifting and Risk Control
  • Alternative Models of Individual Behavior under Uncertainty
  • The Slumlord’s Dilemma and Strategic Behavior
  • Bounded Rationality
  • Moral Hazard and Medical Care Insurance
  • Information Asymmetry and Hidden Action: The Savings and Loan Crisis of the 1980s and Involuntary Un
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Appendix: Evaluating the Costs of Uncertainty
  • Chapter 8 Allocation over Time and Indexation
  • Intertemporal Allocation and Capital Markets
  • Individual Consumption Choice with Savings Opportunities
  • Individual Consumption Choice with Borrowing and Savings Opportunities
  • Individual Investment and Consumption Choices
  • The Demand and Supply of Resources for Investment
  • Individual Choices in Multiperiod Models
  • Choosing a Discount Rate
  • Uncertain Future Prices and Index Construction
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Appendix: Discounting over Continuous Intervals^O
  • PART THREE POLICY ASPECTS OF PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY DECISIONS
  • Chapter 9 The Cost Side of Policy Analysis: Technical Limits, Productive Possibilities, and Cost Con
  • Technical Possibilities and the Production Function
  • The Production Function Is a Summary of Technological Possibilities
  • Efficiency, Not Productivity, Is the Objective
  • Characterizing Different Production Functions
  • Costs
  • Social Opportunity Cost and Benefit-Cost Analysis
  • Accounting Cost and Private Opportunity Cost
  • An Application in a Benefit-Cost Analysis
  • Cost-Output Relations
  • Joint Costs and Peak-Load Pricing^S
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Appendix: Duality—Some Mathematical Relations between Production and Cost Functions^O
  • Chapter 10 Private Profit-Making Organizations: Objectives, Capabilities, and Policy Implications
  • The Concept of a Firm
  • The Private Profit-Maximizing Firm
  • Profit Maximization Requires that Marginal Revenue Equal Marginal Cost
  • The Profit-Maximizing Monopolist
  • Types of Monopolistic Price Discrimination
  • Normative Consequences of Price Discrimination
  • The Robinson-Patman Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act
  • Predicting Price Discrimination
  • Alternative Models of Organizational Objectives and Capabilities^S
  • Objectives Other than Profit Maximization
  • Limited Maximization Capabilities
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Chapter 11 Public and Nonprofit Organizations: Objectives, Capabilities, and Policy Implications
  • Nonprofit Organizations: Models of Hospital Resource Allocation
  • Public Bureaus and Enterprises
  • Empirical Prediction of Public Enterprise Behavior: The Pricing Decisions of BART
  • A Normative Model of Public Enterprise Pricing: The Efficient Fare Structure
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Apppendix: The Mathematics of Ramsey Pricing^O
  • PART FOUR COMPETITIVE MARKETS AND PUBLIC POLICY INTERVENTIONS
  • Chapter 12 Efficiency, Distribution, and General Competitive Analysis: Consequences of Taxation
  • Economic Efficiency and General Competitive Equilibrium
  • Efficiency in an Economy with Production
  • Competitive Equilibrium in One Industry
  • The Twin Theorems Relating Competition and Efficiency
  • General Competitive Analysis and Efficiency
  • Partial Equilibrium Analysis: The Excise Tax
  • General Equilibrium Analysis: Perfect Competition and the Excise Tax
  • Lump-Sum Taxes Are Efficient and Most Real Taxes Are Inefficient
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Appendix: Derivation of the Competitive General Equilibrium Model
  • Chapter 13 The Control of Prices to Achieve Equity in Specific Markets
  • Price Support for Agriculture
  • Apartment Rent Control
  • Preview: Economic Justice and Economic Rent
  • Dissatisfaction with Market Pricing during Temporary Shortage of a Necessity
  • A Standard Explanation of the Inefficiency of Rent Control
  • Rent Control as the Control of Long-Run Economic Rent
  • The Relation between Rent Control and Capitalized Property Values
  • The Supply Responses to Rent Control
  • The Effects of Rent Control on Apartment Exchange
  • Recent Issues of Rent Control
  • A Windfall Profits Tax as Rent Control
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Chapter 14 Distributional Control with Rations and Vouchers
  • Ration Coupons
  • Vouchers and Ration-Vouchers
  • Rationing Military Service
  • The Utility Value of Work
  • Conscription versus the All-Volunteer Military
  • Income Effects of Rationing Methods^S
  • Rationing Gasoline during a Shortage
  • Other Rationing Policies
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • PART FIVE SOURCES OF MARKET FAILURE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE
  • Chapter 15 Allocative Difficulties in Markets and Governments
  • Market Failures
  • Limited Competition Owing to Scale and Scope Economies over the Relevant Range of Demand
  • Public Goods
  • Externalities
  • Imperfect Information
  • Second-Best Failures
  • Government Failures
  • Direct Democracy
  • Representative Democracy
  • Public Producers
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Chapter 16 The Problem of Public Goods
  • The Efficient Level of a Public Good
  • The Problem of Demand Revelation
  • The Housing Survey Example
  • Mechanisms of Demand Revelation
  • The Public Television Example
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Chapter 17 Externalities and Policies to Internalize Them
  • A Standard Critique of Air Pollution Control Efforts
  • The Coase Theorem
  • Efficient Organizational Design and the Degree of Centralized Decision-Making
  • Reconsidering Methods for the Control of Air Pollution
  • Summary
  • Exercise
  • Chapter 18 Industry Regulation
  • Oligopoly and Natural Monopoly
  • Rate-of-Return Regulation
  • Franchise Bidding: The Case of Cable Television
  • Incentive Regulation
  • Summary
  • Exercise
  • Chapter 19 Policy Problems of Allocating Resources over Time
  • Perfectly Competitive and Actual Capital Markets
  • The Social Rate of Discount
  • Education as a Capital Investment
  • The Market Failures in Financing Higher Education Investments
  • Income-Contingent Loan Plans for Financing Higher Education
  • The Allocation of Natural Resources
  • Renewable Resources: Tree Models
  • A Note on Investment Time and Interest Rates: Switching and Reswitching
  • The Allocation of Exhaustible Resources Such as Oil
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • Chapter 20 Imperfect Information and Institutional Choices
  • Asymmetric Information
  • Adverse Selection, Market Signals, and Discrimination in the Labor Market
  • Moral Hazard and Contracting
  • The Nonprofit Supplier as a Response to Moral Hazard
  • Nonprofit Organizations and the Delivery of Day-Care Services
  • The Value of Trust
  • Summary
  • Exercises
  • AUTHOR INDEX
  • SUBJECT INDEX