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Social Efficiency and the Provision of Collective Services
Author(s) -
Tuckman Howard P
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1984.tb01738.x
Subject(s) - inefficiency , government (linguistics) , business , production (economics) , public economics , social welfare , preference , economics , microeconomics , political science , linguistics , philosophy , law
A bstract . Government inefficiency arises from failure of preference, production, and delivery The first occurs when government produces a different mix of collective services than is socially desirable; the second when government produces services less efficiently than it could at given cost levels; the third when the targeted beneficiaries fail to receive the intended level of services. A taxonomy of causes of each type of failure is developed and the conclusion drawn that some inefficiency is inevitable when collective services are provided. At issue is how much inefficiency should be tolerated when the gains to society from the provision of collective services outweigh the costs and how existing inefficiencies can be reduced to lower levels.