文章基本信息

标题：CUSTOMER OWNERSHIP AND QUALITY PROVISION IN PUBLIC SERVICES UNDER ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION
本地全文：下载
作者：Laura Abrardi ; Laura Abrardi ; Luca Colombo 等
期刊名称：Economic Inquiry
印刷版ISSN：0095-2583
出版年度：2016
卷号：54
期号：3
页码：1499-1518
DOI：10.1111/ecin.12315
语种：English
出版社：Western Economic Association International
摘要：The implementation of projects producing external effects is often a source of disagreement and conflict between hosting and nonhosting communities. The article focuses on the impact of participatory ownership on conflict resolution and social welfare in the presence of asymmetric information and imperfect quality monitoring. We show that in such situations the participatory solution may help solve deadlocks that money transfers to a for‐profit operator cannot solve. The analysis highlights three main factors behind this fact. First, a customer‐owned cooperative internalizes, at least partially, the external effects generated by the project. Second, the alignment of cooperative members' preferences with those of the social planner reduces (in some cases eliminates) the distortions caused by information asymmetries. Third, cooperatives require less costly monitoring than their for‐profit counterparts. We also show that cooperatives' productive inefficiency with respect to for‐profits may emerge endogenously as a consequence of a lower pressure to compete on costs for the market. (JEL H23, L33, P13)