Why Public Goods Are a Pedagogical Bad

The concept of “public goods” is confusing because it confounds three analytically distinct concepts: excludability, rivalry, and public finance. Pure public goods are of limited relevance as an explanation of government spending. To make matters worse, the broader policy community uses the term in ways that invoke different means of both “public” and “good” than economists favour. For example, “global public goods” describe everything from the global environment, international financial stability and market efficiency, to health, knowledge, peace and security and humanitarian rights. In this essay, I argue for radically reducing the emphasis placed on public goods in the standard undergraduate public finance curriculum, and instead emphasizing the fundamental underlying issues of exclusion, rivalry, and public finance/provision. The ultimate aim of an undergraduate course in public expenditures should, I argue, be to explain government spending

Sexual Identity and the Marriage Premium

We use the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) to explore the effects of marriage and cohabitation on gay, lesbian, bisexual and heterosexual individuals' hours worked and full-time earnings. The CCHS is one of the largest national-level data sets containing both income and sexual orientation information (Carpenter, 2008). Partnered gay and bisexual men spend more hours in paid employment than their unattached counterparts. However, for those working more than 30 hours per week, the earnings advantage of partnered gay and bisexual men relative to the unattached is insignificant. The hours worked of partnered and unattached lesbians are indistinguishable, however partnered lesbians earn about ten percent more than the unattached. Bisexual men and women experience some of the worst labor market outcomes of any group. These findings suggest that caution should be employed when generalizing results based on studies of cohabiting gay and lesbian couples to the entire non-heterosexual population

Degrees of connection: A critique of Rawls's theory of mutual disinterest

John Rawls's solution to the problem of justice between generations is premised on the idea that "a generation cares for its immediate descendants, as fathers say care for their sons" (John Rawls 1971: 288, emphasis added). This paper brings mothers into the Rawlsian social contract. I argue that, when children have more than one parent, there is a contradiction between the assumption of concern for descendants, which underpins Rawls's account of justice between generations, and the mutual disinterest assumption, which characterizes parties negotiating in the "original position." Concern for descendants creates connections within generations as well as across generations. The critique is internal and nonradical, but its implications are subversive. It demonstrates that an "add women and stir" liberal feminist reworking of Rawls's theory cannot be successful; bringing sexual reproduction out of the realm of nature and into the social contract necessitates a radical reconstruction of Rawls's theory

Control over money in marriage

The traditional economic view of the household is that, although there are differences in the roles men and women play in marriage, these differences represent an efficient division of labor, and both equally enjoy the rewards from cooperation. To put it another way, it is assumed that income received during marriage is “pooled” in a common pot. In economic theory, this assumption is made whenever a married couple is treated as if they have a common budget constraint. At the policy level, this assumption is reflected in, for example, measurements of low income or incomeine quality that arebase d only on family income, or theuseof a married couple’s total income to determine tax liabilities or eligibility for government benefits. Yet a growing body of research casts doubt on the traditional economic view of marriage. More and more, scholars are beginning to see marriage as a “cooperative conflict” (Amartya Sen 1990). Spouses gain when they cooperate in raising children, sharing a home, or dividing labor so work can be done more efficiently.Yet spouses are in conflict over how the gains from marriage are to be distributed. For example, who gets to spend the money saved by preparing meals at home? The chapters in this book describe several theories about marriage, and their predictions as to how the conflict will be resolved. For example, Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman (1993, this volume), argues that the “wage” each spouse receives for his or her part of the marriage is the outcome of a “marriage market” process

The political economy of university education in Canada

Universities promise to “[e]nsure students graduate with the knowledge, skills and experience needed to thrive in the workplace and be successful global citizens.” (COU 2017). However, it is not obvious that they deliver upon this promise. The incentives within the university system, such as they are, tend to reward research, reputation-seeking and keeping students satisfied. Yet the status quo may no longer be sustainable. Demographic change threatens to undermine the present model of university funding. Technological change and other factors have the potential to radically change the demand for university education. Canadian universities need to be able to adapt to new conditions to survive and thrive. This paper outlines the economic and political forces that lead the Canadian university sector to underachieve, especially when it comes to teaching and student learning, identifies pressures on the system and discusses reforms that could alter the incentive structure within the university system

Global public goods: Critique of a UN discourse

The concept of global public goods has been advanced as a way of understanding certain transborder and global problems and the need for a coordinated international response. It has been used to describe everything from global environment, international financial stability, and market efficiency, to health, knowledge, peace and security, and humanitarian rights. Using an internal critique, this article finds that the concept is poorly defined, avoids analytical problems by resorting to abstraction, and masks the incoherence of its two central characteristics. The conclusion is that even if the concept of global public goods is effective rhetorically, precise definition and conceptual disaggregation are required to advance analysis of global issues

MEASURING INEQUALITY WITHIN THE HOUSEHOLD

The purpose of this paper is to explore a number of measures of inequality within households. We focus primarily on two types of inequality, first, inequality in money incomes, second, inequality in control over household resources. Control is measured in two ways: first, as control over the management of household finances and, second, as influence over household decision‐making. We discuss arguments for and against each of the measures of inequality, and compare the measures against one another in terms of the level of inequality each measure finds. The paper does not attempt to explain inequality; instead, its aim is to discuss the question “What is it that we wish to explain?” Perhaps less important, but also revealing, within the 21–34 age group, 90 percent of the males and 80 percent of the females felt that the other partner had more closet space. (“Poll suggests young marriages in big trouble.” The Ottawa Citizen, August 19, 1990.) Copyrigh