Title

Cutting Back by Charging More: What Public Administrators Should Know About the Demand for their Products

Document Type

Presentation

Comments

Prepared for Delivery at the National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration, Denver, Colorado, April 8-10, 1984.

Abstract

This paper applies the economics "Law of Demand" to the problems of local government decision making. As the title implies, fees can be tools to help local government administrators allocate resources more efficiently. Elementary economic concepts like elasticity, and non-price determinants of demand are applied to local government goods and services. These ideas should help local public administrators analyze and predict their service delivery patterns from an economic point of view. The paper ends with 9 implications for local government user fee policy. Equity issues are developed in detail.