Competition in the Provision of Local Public Goods

The central purpose of this book is to analyse the optimal allocation of local public goods or services (for example garbage collection, police, fire brigades and medical services) in large urban agglomerations and the allocation consequences of increasing competition in the provision of them. Competition in the Provision of Local Public Goods uses two innovative aspects present in the concept of Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions, which are de-localized membership and uni-functionality of jurisdictions. The book analyses the effect of these two aspects on competition among jurisdictions and the impact this probable increase in competition may have on the achievement of the optimal allocation of local public goods.

The primary audience for this work is academics and researchers in the fields of urban and regional economics, location theory and public policy. An important secondary audience will be scholars of industrial organization, who can use the framework developed here for analyzing other problems related with the location of individuals in space.