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> the decision to do things for the public good comes ultimately from the "will of the people" This is a nice theory, but who is voting on such minor issues, w
by Empact 16y ago
> the decision to do things for the public good comes ultimately from the "will of the people"
This is a nice theory, but who is voting on such minor issues, when you have wars, economic turmoil &c.? Absent voter pressure, isn't the reality is that such allocations are determined by lobbying?
> a rather small percentage of public expenditure.
Doesn't the suggestion of crowd-out point to an unexamined cost, which is the opportunity cost of the researchers? What would they be doing if not directed by government monies? If their efforts are being applied sub-optimally, what cost does that represent?
- joe_the_user 16y agoYes, If it weren't for government funding, brilliant mathematicians might be making the bucks on Wall Street. It's Wall Street's loss and "society's" gain. That illustrates to me that, contrary to the article, not all goods are private goods. -- and it's not nice to quote people without including their caveats.
- ccamrobertson 16y agoOf course, if government had not intervened during the S&L crisis, the precedent of "too big to fail" may never have been set - ignoring for a moment the full ramifications of financial collapse. The financial sector no longer operates under standard free market rules given TBTF and thus the outsize profits that continue to attract highly educated graduates to Wall Street are secured by fear of total financial collapse. Under the same rules that all other businesses play by, collapse would wipe out the bad players and free up tremendous resources for new enterprises to start - something that did not occur in the case of Wall Street. Thus, aspects of Wall Street shape it to appear as another form of government funding/regulation that crowds out real free market enterprises from hiring those brilliant mathematicians.
- Empact 16y agoWall street is one of the largest recipients of government support, via cheap money from the Federal Reserve, bailouts, &c, and is in fact another example of the exact same crowding effect: government money draws bright minds away from more productive pursuits - absent government money, certainly some of those quants would be entrepreneurs or scientists instead. > contrary to the article, not all goods are private goods Funny that you decry my quoting you, then credit the article with claims it does not make. What economic thinker believes there are no club, common or public goods? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods#Terminology.2C_and_types_of_public_goods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods#Terminology.2C_and...
- joe_the_user 16y agoWall street is one of the largest recipients of government support, via cheap money from the Federal Reserve, bailouts Not something I support. Basic science is an example of a real public good. "The financial system not collapsing" was only a demagogic pseudo-public good. No everything the often corrupt US government does is a public good but that hardly proves research is not a public good. The private sector's willingness to facilitate said corrupt government actions doesn't make me believe said private sector would produce more public benefit if a state functions were fully dismembered into it. -- You are right in the one point, I should have said above, "contrary to the article, public research provides a public good".
- gaius 16y agoWell, yes and no. Resource allocation is a hard problem. Wall Street's problems are of implementation, not design.