Ostrom om statsfejl vs. markedsfejl

Jeg har selv tidligere skrevet lidt om statsfejl versus markedsfejl–og det samme har Elinor Strom, der modtog Nobelprisen i økonomi 2009, og som vi ved den lejlighed diskuterede lidt, og som jeg netop i disse dage er ved at færdigskrive en artikel om.  Så her kommer lidt om dét, Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes m.v.  fra hendes 1997-takketale for Seidman Prisen:

“One of Adam Smith’s major contributions was the development of a theory of order that demonstrated the possibility of beneficial outcomes emerging from the independent contributions of many individuals pursuing their own interests within a set of agreed upon rules. Smith’s work provided the foundation for modern micro-economics that has formalized the theory of competitive markets. Individuals organize themselves into enterprises that seek out opportunities for gain through production and exchange. Competition among buyers and sellers exchanging purely private goods in an open market within a legal framework that defines and enforces property rights and contractual agreements, generates incentives that lead toward optimal results.

While each participant tries to maximize his or her own welfare, competition among producers and consumers of pure private goods leads to an increase in the benefits for all while driving individual advantage over others to a minimum. Public policies consistent with this view of order encourage the development of markets as a stimulus to increase “the wealth of nations.”
Smith’s theory of order stands in marked contrast to that of Thomas Hobbes, who argued that self-organization and competition leads to warfare and necessitates a single center of power dominating all social relationships and imposing peace and order on others. For Hobbes, order came from having a single decision maker rather than relying on the decisions made by many self-organized and independent decision makers. While modern scholars frequently deny their reliance on Hobbesian intellectual roots, the modern theory of “The State” is a direct descendant of Leviathan. The State is defined as an organization with a monopoly over the authority to make law and the legitimate use of coercion.

A major question puzzling analysts for some time has been how far the logic of market organization can be applied to the organization of productive activities beyond strictly private goods. In 1954, Paul Samuelson, for example, demonstrated that it was not possible to rely on decentralized, spontaneous (self-organized) processes to achieve the same level of optimality as that of an open competitive market when the goods involved were public goods and thus not excludable and subtractable. In the same year, H. Scott Gordon examined the effect of open competitive processes for common-pool resources, such as fisheries, where exclusion is also difficult but the goods appropriated by one user are not available to others. Both Samuelson and Gordon–and many scholars who have built on their work–revealed suboptimalities when dealing with collective goods (the term I will use to include both public goods and common-pool resources). Problems range from minor underprovision to the “tragedy of the commons.” Markets fail to achieve optimal results when externalities are generated, and it is difficult to exclude beneficiaries who gain an advantage without their contributing to the cost of provision. A policy prescription stemming from the work of these political economists and from some theoretical traditions in public administration has been that a centralized authority is necessary to achieve greater welfare potentials for collective goods.

Contemporary policy prescriptions tend to recommend Smith’s concept of market order for all private goods and Hobbes’s conception of the sovereign State for all collective goods. Since many of the goods and services desired in a modern economy are not pure private goods, this leads to the prescription that the State–in the singular–should provide and produce all the goods and services where markets fail. Showing that one institutional arrangement leads to sub-optimal performance is not equivalent, however, to showing that another institutional arrangement will perform better. Government monopolies also fail in providing and producing local public goods and common-pool resources efficiently and equitably. When preferences for levels and types of local public goods–such as the use of public spaces, the level of police protection, or investments in urban infrastructure–vary substantially within sub-populations, no known voting mechanism translates individual preferences into stable aggregations that reflect “the public interest” (Arrow, 1951). Problems of information loss, shirking, and budget maximization are substantial in large public bureaucracies (Tullock, 1965; Williamson, 1967; Miller, 1992). Mechanisms to reduce shirking and corruption are difficult to establish.”

11 thoughts on “Ostrom om statsfejl vs. markedsfejl

  1. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard Forfatter

    Nej, det er hun ikke–hun er faktisk, i praksis, ret pragmatisk. Men omvendt skal man vist ikke lade sig snyde af, hvor langt hun og Vincent Ostrom er villige til at gå–så længe det er ud fra de rette pragmatiske hensyn …

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  2. Jesper R

    @Peter Klitgaard

    Hvad mener du med “.. Ud fra de rette pragmatiske hensyn”?

    Ikke for at fluekneppe, men kan bare ikke se det give mening.

    Mvh Jesper

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  3. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard Forfatter

    Hvad jeg mener er, at V. & E. Ostroms fokus aldrig er på fordelingsmæssige hensyn, men altid orienteret i retning af frihed, selvbestemmelse, “rule of law” og, ja, en eller anden form for samfundsmæssig nytte-maksimering. Det leder dem til at formulere begrebet “polycentri” som et analytisk begreb og et normativt ideal: Et principielt uendeligt sæt af funktionelt overlappende jurisdiktioner, hvor kollektive goder og tjenesteydelser produceres på det niveau og i det omfang, der er optimalt m.h.p. at koncentrere omkostningerne ved at finansiere noget på skuldrene af dem, der nyder noget. Det er ikke en “markedsløsning” i en snæver forstand (fordi de også taler om civilsamfundet i bred forstand), men det er, når man nærlæser dem, faktisk en ret radikal vision. Den er bare ikke baseret i en simpel formel.

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  4. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard

    Jeg tror, det hører med til historien, at hendes empiriske speciale er at rejse rundt i (primært) den tredje verden og undersøge, hvorledes landmænd, fiskere, hyrder, o.s.v., løser fællesgode-problemer. Hun optræder tit i diverse kjoler indkøbt ved sådanne rejser. Vel lidt a la Kamal Qureshi ved diverse hofballer–uden sammenligning iøvrigt.

    Men apropos, Limagolf: Synes Du selv, at–for nu at tage noget HELT tilfældigt–de fleste Venstre-politikere er specielt velklædte …? Mænd som kvinder. Jeg kunne godt nævne en del fra Christiansborg eller Københavns Rådhus, eller kandidater til samme, der hverken har god smag eller heldig stil, og om hvem man kunne sige–for at omskrive Dine ord–at man måtte håbe, at deres politik er bedre end deres påklædning …

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  5. Jesper R

    Hej Peter

    Tak for dit svar ang. pragmatiske hensyn. Jeg er helt enig med dig – skulle bare lige forstå meningen af din sætning 🙂

    Apropos beklædning (eller udklædning:-) af politikere, så har vi over en længere periode (måske en dekade) set et fald i “kvalitet”. Det er sket i takt med, at det er blevet mere hip at være lidt “street”, ikke se så formel ud, prøve at mindske afstanden imellem politiker og den almindelige dansker og at den socialdemokratiske stemning flyver over landet.

    Men det er jo ikke kun i politik, vi ser det. Det er også blevet mere fremherskende i private virksomheder som fx banker, hvor man prøver at mindske afstanden imellem bruger og bankrådgiver (for at de skal være på samme niveau). Men hvorfor? -Jeg ønsker ikke en bankrådgiver på samme niveau som undertegnede. Jeg ønsker en bankrådgiver, der kan agere ekspert på sit område, og som udstråler samme – gerne igennem beklædning bl.a.

    Mvh Jesper

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  6. Niels A Nielsen

    O/T

    IPCC’s konsensuspanel kan vel snart ikke tage mere vand ind efter de talrige -gates. Og så alligevel…

    På Anthony Watts blog har jeg lige set, at en kollega til James Hansen på GISS, Andrew Lacis, skrev en sønderlemmende kritik som kommentar til Executive Summary af det måske væsentligste kapitel i IPCC’s AR4 “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”:

    “There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.”

    http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7798293?n=17

    Andrew Revkin, NYT, er efter sigende på sagen.

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  7. Limagolf

    @ PKK
    “Men apropos, Limagolf: Synes Du selv, at–for nu at tage noget HELT tilfældigt–de fleste Venstre-politikere er specielt velklædte …?”

    Det varierer lidt … Er tweed OK med dig? 😉

    Nu var min kommentar ikke en kritik af hende selv eller hendes forskning, men jeg må nok tilstå at jeg snappede efter vejret da jeg så det billede.

    Jeg ville aldrig tage sådan en på, det er helt sikkert 🙂

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  8. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard Forfatter

    @Limagolf:

    He he he … 😉

    Jeps. Tweed er faktisk ikke bare ok, men (som det ses andetsteds) stort set et krav for at komme ind i mit hjem. Og slips. Sikkert derfor jeg ikke så tit har besøg af bloggens ærede redaktør …

    Nej, sådan en kjole ville Du nok ikke tage på så tit. Men for mange politikeres vedkommende ville det være et fremskridt. Også blandt kvinderne.

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  9. Limagolf

    Jeg mindes faktisk at Jytte Hilden havde en lignede afro-inspireret sag på til et kongeligt bryllup. Den var ikke heldig. Så, nu har vi både nævnt Jytte Hilden og Kamal Qureshi i forbindelse med den kjole. Nu skal vi nok bare lade det ligge…

    Jeg har det rigtig fint med tweed. Jeg mener faktisk at hvis noget er værd at gøre, er det værd at gøre i tweed!

    Slips derimod har jeg det svært med. jeg kan ikke se pointen med dem. Man har dem på for at have dem på – de har jo ikke længere nogen praktisk virkning, efter at man opfandt knappen i kraven. Hvis du nu gik med knapløse skjorter og sløjfer til at holde kraven sammen, gav det god mening. Men så konservativ er du vel heller ikke?

    Så slips er reduceret i virkning til en social kontrol – en slags vestlig, borgelig mandeburka om man vil. Det stryger mig mod hårene.

    🙂

    Men det er nok også en af forskellene på liberale og konservative: i hvor høj grad vi mener irrelevant social kontrol skal styre vores liv. 😉

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