Title: Microeconomics Level 2
1Microeconomics Level 2 Module 3
2Welfare Economics Equity and Efficiency
3EQUITY
- How fair is the distribution of goods and
services? - Of course, fairness is a value judgement
- In principle, we can distinguish between
- Horizontal equity equal treatment of equals
- Vertical equity different treatment of different
people to reduce effects of inequality
4Equity of Allocations
Allocation a description of who gets what
- Starting from A, a move to E or F reflects a
decrease in equity
5Efficiency of allocations
- Relative to initial point A
- B is better for all (and C is worse)
- D is better for one, and no worse for other
- B D are said to be Pareto improvements on A
6Pareto Efficiency
- An allocation is Pareto efficient (given tastes,
resources and technology) if it is impossible to
find another allocation that makes someone better
off and nobody worse off. - There can be more than one Pareto efficient
allocation, and - even inequitable allocations may be Pareto
efficient
7Are Markets Pareto Efficient?
- Key Questions
- Do free markets always lead to Pareto efficient
allocations? - If not, why not?
- What are the implications for policy?
8Competitive Equilibrium Pareto Efficiency
- Consider two industries, meals and films.
Suppose both are competitive and in equilibrium.
Meals cost Pm and films Pf each. - Last meal eaten yields Pm extra utility to
consumer last film watched yielded Pf - Pm and Pf are also the marginal costs of
production - This suggests that there is no way to reallocate
production to generate a Pareto improvement
9An Example
- Suppose Pf 2Pm consumers need two meals to
give up one film - But producers need twice as much resources to
'serve' a film instead of a meal - So they could offer two meals for an extra film,
but no net gain for consumers or producers - PUNCH LINE Competitive equilibrium is Pareto
efficient (The Invisible Hand Theorem!)
10AN IDEA
- If markets are efficient
- confine government intervention to
redistribution, and - rely on markets to achieve efficiency
- However markets may not always be efficient
- Market Failure a circumstance in which
equilibrium in free markets fails to achieve an
efficient allocation
11Sources of Market Failure
- Tax distortions
- Externalities
- Public goods
- Imperfect information
- Imperfect competition
- We will look at each of these in turn
12Group Work Efficiency and Equity
- Government intervention in the economy is
pervasive. For each type of intervention listed
below identify the possible rationale. Is it
primarily - (Pareto) efficiency considerations?
- a desire for greater equity?
- something else?
- Income tax
- Taxation of petrol
- Windfall tax on utilities
- Regulating electricity prices
13Group Work
- Regulating discharge of sewage in the Thames
- Legislation against insider trading
- Banning the use of cocaine
- Unemployment insurance
- Making primary school compulsory
- Maintaining an army
- Running the NHS
- Running the Post Office
Is there a trade-off between equity and
efficiency?
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15MARKET FAILURE Taxation
- Suppose we have a tax only on films
- This tax wedge implies, for last film seen
- post-tax price exceeds producer's gain
- consumers value exceeds producer's value
- Implications for meals industry
- Marginal private cost of meals is below their
marginal social cost
16Taxes distort
- Consequently, if only films are taxed,
- films are too expensive and meals too cheap
- we get too many meals relative to social optimum,
and too few films - IDEA a tax on meals too, to correct the
imbalance
17THE SECOND BEST
- If there exists a price distortion, get rid of it
to achieve the FIRST BEST (full efficiency) - However, if you cannot get rid of the distortion
in one market, it is not always efficient to
arrange for other markets to be undistorted - Rather, it helps to spread the inevitable
distortion more thinly, by DELIBERATELY
introducing new distortions in other markets
18MARKET FAILURE Externalities
- EXTERNALITY
- A circumstance in which an individual's
production or consumption affects others' utility
or productivity - the effect is direct (and not through the market
or prices)
19Externalities examples
- Adverse consumption externality smoking
- Beneficial consumption externality painting the
exterior of your house - Beneficial production externality bees and
orchards - Adverse production externality pollution
20Why Externalities Matter
- THE ESSENTIAL PROBLEM
- Market mechanism aligns private costs and
benefits - Externalities imply divergence between social and
private costs (or social and private benefit) - If divergences exist, should not expect socially
efficient allocations
21Adverse Production Externality
- For social optimum, want social marginal cost
social marginal benefit - At the free market equilibrium E, output Q is
higher than social optimum Q this results in
dead-weight loss EFG - SOLUTION 1 (Pigou). Corrective taxation
22Property Rights
- Solution 2 (Coase)
- Assign property rights and let people trade these
rights in pseudo-market - Initial assignment affects distribution but gets
an efficient outcome - This solution does not work if there are high
transactions costs or free riding
Efficient quantity is Q
23MARKET FAILURE Public Goods
- Consumed in same quantity by everyone
- Examples defence, safe streets, TV signal
- Characteristics
- Non-rival consumption my consumption does not
diminish what is available for you - Non-excludability impossible or too costly to
prevent people from consuming it
24Why free markets cant get public goods right
- Possible solutions
- The problem of free-riding
- Note that government needs to ensure right
quantity, but does not need to produce it itself
25MARKET FAILURE Imperfect information
- In reality, information in markets is less than
perfect (e.g. we often need to search) - Often there is asymmetry of information between
buyers and sellers - Resulting in the problems of adverse selection
and moral hazard - This may result in incomplete markets or even
missing markets - Solutions mitigate informational problems or
provide goods directly
26Moral hazard
- If you are fully insured against losses, you have
little incentive to be careful - insurance company bears the loss, not you
- increased carelessness increases risk of loss
this is moral hazard - The usual solution
- Insurance company forces you to bear some risk
(excess payments or coinsurance) to maintain
incentives to be careful - Here you can buy only partial insurance. In some
cases, no market at all
27MARKET FAILURE Imperfect Competition
- The essential problem
- With market power, price exceeds marginal cost,
- so social marginal benefit exceeds social
marginal cost, - leading to Pareto inefficiency
- Importantly, it is the restriction of output that
is costly - First-best solution align price marginal costs
28MONOPOLY benefits
- Dynamic efficiency more RD?
- Better coordination of decisions
- Economies of scale
- With natural monopolies, economies of scale so
strong that it is cheaper to have one producer
rather than duplicate fixed costs. - Here, imposing the first-best solution
(i.e., price marginal cost) results in losses
29MONOPOLY Solutions
- Solution 1. Nationalize and finance losses
through taxes - politically not very feasible
- Solution 2. Break monopoly e.g. anti-trust
legislation in US - However, no good for natural monopolies
30MONOPOLY Solutions
- Solution 3. Regulate Prevent abuse of monopoly
power through price and non-price controls (UK
approach)Practical issues when is regulation
necessary? What form? - Solution 4. Nurture competition Encourage new
entrants, (but will they enter and will it only
lead to cream skimming?) - In general, difficulties with the mix of remedies
31Group Work Pollution control
- You are the National Rivers Regulator, tackling
the problem of a chemical firm that is polluting
the Thames - If everything could be quantified and valued,
show in a diagram how a pollution tax can induce
the firm to behave in a socially efficient
manner. - Instead of the tax you offer the firm a pollution
quota (specifying the maximum pollution it can
discharge in any year). Show the size of the
quota in the diagram. What difference does it
make to the efficient quantity of pollution? - Now suppose information is harder to come by. As
the regulator, you are not entirely certain about
the firm's cost curve. Does this affect your
choice between tax and quotas? - Lastly, suppose there are two chemical firms
discharging into the river, one cleaner than the
other. Is it better to - set a pollution tax? (same rate per unit polluted
for both?) - set each a quota?
- auction pollution quotas?
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33INDUSTRIAL POLICY
- Central idea market failure calls for an active
role for the government - Based on the idea that intervention can
- Correct failures in markets for knowledge
- Assist in the diffusion of new technologies
- Correct for excessive risk aversion
- Circumvent coordination failures, etc.
- However, the possibility of government failure
34Research Development
- PROBLEM Inventions are a public good, so that
unregulated markets may not produce enough - RD activity equals 2-3 of GDP in OECD
- THREE SOLUTIONS
- Patents confer time-bound legal monopoly on the
inventor - Procurement use government research labs e.g.
defence - Patronage provide subsidies to universities
35New technologies and standards
- Problem uncertainty about new technologies and
standards may cause - lock-in in to poor standards (QWERTY?)
- delays in adoption (VHS and Betamax)
- Solution guide technological choices?
36Risk
- Problem Markets may display excessive risk
aversion - Collectively, society can pool risks across
projects spread risks across population - Solution underwrite private sector losses?
venture capital?
37Coordination of economic activity
- Location externalities and new lessons in
economic geography - Sunrise industries correct deficient incentives
to acquire skills and imperfection in markets for
loans to new firms - Sunset industries managing the transition
prevent survival of an inefficiently large number
of firms
38Government Failure
- However, we must beware of the possibility of
government failure. - For instance, the possibility that governments
may face the same informational constraints as
markets. - If so, government intervention may just replace
market failure with government failure
39Taxation and Public Spending
40Taxation
- Variety of taxes
- Direct taxes income tax, corporation tax
- Indirect taxes on expenditure, VAT
41Desirable Characteristics of Tax System
- Equity
- Efficiency
- Administrative simplicity
- Cost of ensuring compliance
- Responsiveness to changing economic circumstances
42Progressivity of taxation
- Proportional average tax rate constant
- Progressive average tax rate rises with income
- Regressive average tax rate falls with income
- We must assess progressiveness carefully
incidence of taxes, benefits, direct provision of
goods
43Tax incidence who really bears the tax
Tax incidence diagrams either (as here) at
consumer prices (supply curve shifts) or at
producer prices (demand curve shifts)
Relative to original equilibrium, gross price
goes up but less than tax (i.e., net price goes
down)
44Tax incidence who really bears the tax
- Regardless of who the tax is levied on, its
INCIDENCE depends on elasticity of supply and
demand - Inelastic supply/demand means bear the tax
- Elastic supply/demand escape the burden
45Principles of Optimal Taxation
- EFFICIENCY
- aim to minimise harmful effects on choice
- use lump-sum taxes wherever sensible
- if choosing variable taxes, choose tax rates to
minimise distortion - Ramsey principle tax rate higher if supply or
demand is inelastic - of course, taxes often help correct other
distortions pollution taxes, and sin taxes on
cigarettes, alcohol
46Principles of Optimal Taxation
EQUITY Two principles Ability to pay take
more from the rich Benefits principle
beneficiaries of public provision to pay more
Vertical equity suggests progressive tax system
but this may conflict with efficiency
47Public Spending
- Government expenditure around 40 of GDP
- Social insurance contributory benefits such as
unemployment, sickness, pensions benefits - Equity non-contributory benefits, such as income
support, housing benefit, family support - Merit goods what society believes all should
have (externalities or paternalism) benefits-in
kind, education, health - Public goods law and order, defence
48Public Spending
- The big three
- Social security
- Health
- Education
- account for 3/5 of all public spending.
- We shall study these more carefully
49Health care
50Health Care a merit good?
- Sources of muddled thinking
- an emotional issue
- is health a basic right? But so is food
- is health care a commodity like any other? like
cars, houses, etc.
51Health Care the issues
- Is a private market for health care efficient?
- Is it equitable?
- Is public production and allocation more
efficient? More equitable? - Efficiency
- macro what fraction of GDP on health
- micro how to allocate resources within system
- Equity but of what?
52Health Care the product
- Health care is only an input. Output -- improved
health outcomes -- also depends on diet,
environment, lifestyle - Does health care reduce suffering? prolong life?
improve life? - And how valuable is improved health? Impact on
output, earnings, income? Impact on happiness
53Why intervene in health care
- Would a private health care market be efficient?
- Imperfections in competition
- Imperfections due to asymmetric information and
insurance - Externalities and public goods aspects
- In addition to efficiency issues
- equity issues
- ethical issues
54Imperfect competition
- Would a private health care market be perfectly
competitive? - monopoly power of medical associations
- market power of drug companies
- Possible solutions
- Regulation
- Countervailing power (say, drug purchases by the
NHS)
55Imperfect information
- Do people know if they are ill? What treatment do
they need? What is available? - Here seller (doctor) knows more than buyer
- technical complexity of information
- patients' inability to weigh alternatives
- high cost of errors
- In sum, this is hardly rational consumer choice
- Solutions provision of information and
regulation but both are costly - Public provision?
56Problems with Health Insurance
- Pattern of demand small probability of major
expenditure - Usually buy insurance in such situations but
insurance markets suffer from many problems - adverse selection attract especially sick
- moral hazard tendency to over-treat
- correlated risk are hard to insure epidemics
- missing markets for congenital problems
- Can intervene to reduce these problems, but
causes other problems. - Social insurance?
57Externalities and public good
Problem Communicable diseases are a negative
externality A solution to subsidise treatment In
general, the public good aspect of basic
healthcare
58Other reasons for intervention
- Equity arguments
- Moral and ethical arguments
- babies, organs should not be sold
59How to intervene?
- EFFICIENCY who should PRODUCE health care?
private, public, or mixed production? - Equity how should we PAY for it?
- tax (payments based on ability or need?)
- tax private (help for the poor?)
- private insurance (compulsory?)
- Should production and finance be handled
together? e.g. health maintenance organisations
60Other questions
- Macro-economic issue
- How much should we spend on health? rising cost
of health care - ageing population
- more sophisticated (and expensive) treatment
61Health care in the UK case notes
- THE PATIENT NHS
- GPs provide primary care guide and gatekeeper
- Since 2003, Foundation Trusts, with financial and
managerial autonomy run hospitals - Primary Care Trusts purchase hospital care,
community services - Strategic Health Authorities to oversee Primary
Care Trusts and NHS Trusts - Department of Health
62THE CASE HISTORY
- Universal and virtually free access
- Publicly financed
- Good health outcome
- Cheap expenditure is 7-8 of GDP,
- But rising (up by 70 in real terms 1979-96, due
to bulges in birth rate in post-war period,
ageing population new, costly treatments) - A recurrent crisis of confidence queues, alleged
inefficiencies
63Health Spending, 2001
Spending per head, USPPP Spending, per cent of GDP
Australia 2350 8.9
France 2561 9.5
Japan 1984 7.6
Germany 2808 10.7
UK 1992 7.6
USA 4887 13.9
64DIAGNOSIS?
- Inefficient or under-funded?
- If inefficient, why?
- skills shortages?
- bureaucratic inefficiency?
- absence of choice for patients?
- If under-funded,
- more public money or private resources?
65PREVIOUS TREATMENT
- 1989 White Paper called for an internal market
- invisible hand rather than central control
- separation of funding from provision purchaser
can buy from competing providers - GP fund-holders to manage own budgets
- Hospital Trusts, with greater managerial control
and financial autonomy - Were the objectives genuine, or just a response
to fiscal crisis?
66SWITCHING PROTOCOL
- Prior to 1991, central planning
- 1991-97 quasi markets
- 1997-2003 move away from markets
- 2003- competition and choice
67LONG-TERM CARE
- More public money or is privatisation inevitable?
- Will this create a dual structure, for rich and
poor? Implications for life expectancy? - Private health care currently cheap (residual use
only, complicated treatment done by NHS, high
number of young in privately insured, low cost of
medical services in the UK), but will this last?
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69Group Work Education
- Identify the salient characteristics of education
as a commodity. Is it a merit good? - Do you expect private markets for education to be
efficient? Identify reasons for any market
failures. - Private markets for education are likely to be
inequitable. Should we worry about this? - If a university degree has any worth,
individuals will be prepared to pay for it. This
makes a case for more private finance in higher
education. Comment.
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71The Welfare State
72Public versus Private Sector
- When comparing public with private sector, it is
important to remember that - public sector losses were sometimes intentional
- cost structures differ Post Office vs private
couriers
73Are governments less efficient than markets?
- Evidence
- Private sector firms are more efficient PROVIDED
they operate in markets with strong competition - Key issue not ownership, but severity of
competition (or competition policy) - E.g., many UK utilities improved in RUN-UP to
privatisation, while they were still in public
hands - But this is not to deny that there have been
serious inefficiencies
74Agency theory and incentives
- Imagine a project where
- the agent's effort affects probability of success
- effort is unobservable or hard to measure
- If so,
- the principal needs to provide incentives (carrot
or stick) to induce effort - without incentives, individuals may slack-off
- Lesson incentives matter
75Why is the public sector less efficient?
- 1. The incentives problem
- At the organisational level no fear of
bankruptcy, no competition - At the individual level not enough carrot
(relatively fixed salary) or stick (relative
security of tenure) - In sum, incentive structures are relatively flat
- Why not use better incentive schemes in the
public sector? - Mostly because measuring success is harder due
multiplicity of objectives and poor information - 2. Institutional aspects what DO civil servants
do?
76Lessons for policy makers
- Market failure does not make an automatic case
for intervention - Sometimes government intervention makes matters
worse. Informational problems affect both public
and private sectors. - regulation often has perverse effects
- vulnerability of civil servants to rent-seeking
behaviour - Weigh existing inefficiencies against risk of
government failure
77Supply-side economics
- Central idea
- Force government OUT of market place, to unleash
private sector dynamism. - Use microeconomic incentives to increase
productivity - Origins
- disenchantment with Keynesian, demand-side
thinking - tax fatigue of the 1970s
78Supply-side economics suggestions
- Cut marginal tax rates to provide incentive for
hard work). Cut the dole, to increase labour
participation. If output goes up, so might tax
revenue (Laffer curve) - Cut taxes on savings, dividends, to reduce
distortions - Cut business tax, allow more depreciation to
induce new investment - Rein in the state, cut govt spending (cut real
interest rates), encourage privatisation - Reform labour market (curb the Trade Unions)
Encourage profit-sharing schemes to incentivise
workers. Vocational training, etc.
79Evaluation of Supply-side economics
- did well on the inflation front
- tax cuts may not induce more workSubstitution
effect (work more because work is rewarded more),
vs income effect (work less as you can get goods
you want with fewer hours of work). Evidence
inconclusive - likewise, cutting taxes on interest raises the
return on saving, but may not induce people to
save more - budgetary troublesUS government found it easier
to reduce public investment but not current
expenditure (wages of civil servants). Laffer was
off the mark - aggregate investment did not expand much, once
you correct for the business cycle - incentive effects of some US tax cuts were
perverse
80In sum
- Implications for efficiency
- Claims about likely efficiency gains were
exaggerated - Implications for equity
- Given that they aim to increase incentive to work
and invest, supply-side policies -- if successful
-- will inevitably widen the gap between those
who succeed and those that fail. - Did alter income distribution (tax cuts were
deeper for the rich public spending on poor fell)
81THE WELFARE STATE
- Designed for both equity and efficiency
- Equity
- reduce poverty (insurance) and create a more
equal distribution of wealth - not just altruism, also desire for social
cohesion - Efficiency
- provide insurance against risks that market do
not cover well (unemployment, illness) - provide social services to correct for market
failures in health, education, housing, pensions
82LESSONS OF HISTORY
- Dynamics of welfare state provision
- welfare state disconnects relationship between
effort and reward - but habits die hard habit-restrained lags
between welfare provision and deterioration of
incentives - overshooting of welfare provision, leading to
potential fiscal crises
83LESSONS OF HISTORY
- Is the welfare state viable?
- Thatcher's contribution linking payments to
inflation not earnings - Should benefits be targeted or universal?
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85Cost-Benefit Analysis
86COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
- Analysis of costs and benefits useful for
- Capital projects
- Policy and programme development
- Use or disposal of existing assets
- Environmental standards, health and safety
- Procurement decisions
87THE PROCESS
- Justify action and set objectives
- Appraise the options including the do minimum
and so-called politically infeasible
onesIdentify costs and benefits of each option - Adjustments
- non-market impacts
- risk and optimism
- distributional impacts
- Develop and implement solutions
- Evaluation
88FORMS OF APPRAISAL
- Financial Appraisal
- Compare revenue with costs, as private firm does
- (Social) Cost-benefit analysis
- Quantify costs and benefits of each option,
including costs and benefits that the market does
not value - Cost-effectiveness analysis
- If benefits are hard to quantify, compare the
costs of achieving some target level of benefits
89SOME TECHNICALITIES
- TIME PREFERENCE
- People prefer 1 today to 1 tomorrow
- demand a premium to postpone consumption
- OPPORTUNITY COST OF CAPITAL
- cost in terms of opportunities foregone
- rate r at which you borrow
- DISCOUNTING AND NET PRESENT VALUE
- What discount rate should we use?
- INFLATION erodes future values
- either all values real or all values nominal
90Decision rule Net Present Value Criterion
- Forecast the cash flow generated by the project
over its lifetime - Assess opportunity cost of capital, and discount
future cash flows - Calculate the net present value (NPV) sum of
discounted net flows - Decision Rule
- ONE OPTION Invest if NPV is positive
- MANY OPTIONS Invest in project with highest NPV
- All this is easier said than done
91SOCIAL COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
- While private sector cares about profits,
government must consider a larger of benefits
and costs - The government uses the Net Present Value
criterion but, to the extent social benefits and
costs diverge from private benefits and costs,
estimates of NPV could differ - Social rate of time preference may differ from
market rates of interest
92VALUING NON-MARKET IMPACTS
- Evaluate non-market consequences
- externalities, including environmental ones
- consumers surplus
- saving of time, human life
- possibilities of catastrophic risk
- Often hard to value these. Can use
- Willingness to Pay (WTP)
- Willingness to Accept (WTA)
- Contingent Valuation Methods (CVM)
93Some caveats
- Macroeconomic effects
- Need not make allowances for broader effects,
such as tax flow-backs, savings in benefit
payments, etc. These may happen even if the
proposed project is rejected and some other is
accepted - What prices should the government use?
- Best to use MARKET PRICES. The use of so-called
shadow prices can be justified only if there is
severe market failure.
94Other issues
- What if the project has irreversible consequence?
- Be cautious. Raise the threshold of acceptance
for a project to compensate for the
irreversibility. - Distributional impact
- see how costs and benefits affect different groups
95The effect of the chosen discount rate
- Consider stream of positive returns NPV falls as
we use a higher discount rate
Choice of too high a discount rate will reject
good projects Choice of too low a discount rate
will accept bad ones
96What discount rate should the government use?
- Should it use the market rate at which private
firms attract finance? - In THEORY, the answer depends on aggregate impact
of all public investment on private investment
and consumption - In PRACTICE, government uses a fixed rate of
social time preference for consistency. - was set at 6 pa in real terms
- now has been stripped down to 3.5
- Lower rates for long-term projects
97Risk and Uncertainty
- What if benefits or cost are uncertain?
- Private firms add some risk premium to the
discount rate this lowers NPV, making acceptance
of risky project less likely - Should the government discount risk?In
principle, if the government can spread risk very
thinly across the population, answer is NO. - In practice, risk evaluation and management is an
important part.
98Managing and Evaluating Risk
- IDENTIFY all risks
- Assess what can be transferred, at low cost, to
the private sector - Use of pilot projects to learn more about costs
and benefits. Use flexible designs avoid the risk
of being hostage to fortune. - Eliminate optimism bias
- Monte Carlo analyses sensitivity analyses to
look at NPV of project under alternative
assumptions about the value of uncertain
parameters
99Green Accounting A Case Study
100Further reading
- Begg, Fisher and Dornbush, Economics, 7th
edition, PART 3 - John Kay, The Truth about Markets their genius,
their limits, their follies, Allen Lane, 2003 - Nicholas Barr, The Economics of the Welfare
State, 4th edition, Oxford University Press, 2004 - This is a good manual for many aspects of public
finance and the welfare state. See especially - chapter 3 social theory and the state
- chapter 4 state intervention
- chapter 12health and health-care
- chapter 13 housing
101MicroeconomicsLevel 2