Abstract
The familiar market-failure model remains quite useful for issues of price efficiency and traditional utilitarianism, but it has many shortcomings as a standard for public-value aspects of public policy and management. In a public-value-failure model, I present criteria for diagnosing values problems that are not easily addressed by market-failure models. Public-value failure occurs when: (1) mechanisms for values articulation and aggregation have broken down; (2) "imperfect monopolies" occur; (3) benefit hoarding occurs; (4) there is a scarcity of providers of public value; (5) a short time horizon threatens public value; (6) a focus on substitutability of assets threatens conservation of public resources; and (7) market transactions threaten fundamental human subsistence. After providing examples for diagnosis of public-values failure, including an extended example concerning the market for human organs, I introduce a "public-failure grid" to facilitate values choices in policy and public management.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 145-161 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Public administration review |
Volume | 62 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2002 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Public Administration
- Marketing