ECS3704 Public Economics

1. “Health care should be a public good”. In your arguments for and against, show the characteristics of private versus public goods clearly.

2. Discuss or reflect on inequality and poverty and the impact of personal-income-tax-funded cash transfers on work effort, also during the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa.

3. “An ad valorem excise duty on crayfish sales would be fair.” Do you agree? Explain your answer using partial and general equilibrium analysis. Is such a tax progressive, proportional or regressive? (Hint: Crayfish is considered to be a luxury product but what is the status of the people who mostly work in processing plants for crayfish?).

4. “More than half of South Africa’s municipalities are in dire financial health unable to provide essential public goods.” Critically discuss the Tiebout model as an explanation for a market-like solution to the efficient provision of local public goods.