Okun’s merit goods

I’m reading Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff, by Arthur Okun. The first paragraph lists some merit goods in the US:

  • Justice
  • Political rights
  • Access to national monuments
  • Speedy response from the fire department

The book was published in 1975, well before the incident in Tennessee that calls the final entry into question.

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Austin Frakt

Austin Frakt, PhD, is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist and tweets at @afrakt. His day job is Director of the Partnered Evidence-based Policy Resource Center at the Boston VA Healthcare System, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He is also a Professor with the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at the Boston University’s School of Public Health, a Principal Research Scientist with the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Health Services Research.

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