The national economic concept of ‘public goods’ has its transnational analogue, which provides a signpost to the effective management of globalization processes. The pursuit of global public goods, along with the prevention of global public bads, will assist the attainment of a more equitable, and hence a more stable, world order, and should be seen as a vital complement to economic development aid.
Examines the implications of translating the concept of public goods, originally developed in the setting of a domestic national economy, to that of global public goods set within a transnational global economy. This requires important adjustments to the concepts of ‘triangle of publicness’ (publicness of consumption, of benefits, and of decision‐making), as well as new typologies of public goods.
People need both private and public goods for their well‐being. This chapter focuses on public goods, introducing the generic concept of public goods first, refining this generic definition, and identifying the distinguishing characteristics of global public goods. The main properties and distinguishing features of international public goods, including regional and global public goods can be grouped into two sets. The first is that their benefits have strong qualities of publicness – i.e., they are marked by nonrivalry in consumption and nonexcludability. These features place them in the general category of public goods. The second criterion is that their benefits are quasi universal in terms of countries (covering more than one group of countries), people (accruing to several, preferably all population groups), and generations (extending to both current and future generations, or at least meeting the needs of current generations without foreclosing development options for future generations). This property makes humanity as a whole the publicum, or beneficiary of global public goods.
This collection of papers offers a new rationale and framework for international development cooperation. Its main argument is that in actual practice development cooperation has already moved beyond aid. In the name of aid (i.e., assistance to poor countries), we are today dealing with issues such as the ozone hole, global climate change, HIV, drug trafficking, and financial volatility. All of these issues are not really poverty related. Rather, they concern global housekeeping: ensuring an adequate provision of global public goods. Many important lessons could be drawn by first recognizing this fact – revealing innovative reforms toward more effective international policy making in the twenty‐first century.
Explains the purposes underlying the structure of the four main parts of the book—to review and sharpen the analytical concepts employed; to clarify the stake‐holder interests, which comprise ‘publicness’; to examine issues affecting the efficiency of production of public goods; and to identify the ways in which the interface between national and transnational decision‐making affects the strategic management of the provision of global public goods.
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