There may be a price to pay (in terms of inefficient coverage) if competition among health insurers is encouraged as a way to give patients greater choice and to achieve better control over insurance providers

Pigou's conjecture was that under costly taxation public expenditures should not reach the point where marginal benefits equal marginal costs. In the treatment here, public expenditures (and environmental protection) may provide public goods for consumption but also collective inputs for...

Large potential benefits of infrastructure may elude identification and measurement by conventional cost-benefit analysis. Canning and Bennathan estimate social rates of return on general capital, by examining the effect on aggregate output and comparing that effect with the costs of construction

Some corruption of employees will exist when managers are constrained in setting rewards and penalties. Attempts to reduce corruption need to address these constraints. Raising salaries without raising expected penalties will have higher costs than benefits