Exam 14: The Role of Government and Public Goods

All of the examples listed below, with one exception, are public goods which at times might possibly lose some of their public good properties due to congestion. Which example is an exception?

People have a strong incentive to hide their true willingness-to-pay, or valuation, of a public good because taxing officials might use it to get them to pay more taxes.

In Bermuda, there are no rivers or other bodies of water for drinking water. Each home must collect rain water in giant storage tanks, which supplies almost all of the homes' needs. Is water a public good in Bermuda?

A set of diet recommendations to help diabetes patients maintain optimal blood sugar levels is a public good.

Any research publication which receives NIH funding must be published in the PUBMED database, which is available free of charge to anyone with internet connection. This is consistent with the goal of providing research and knowledge to as many people in society as possible.

Medical research, as well as Medicare and Medicaid programs, are funded as entitlements by the government.

Discuss the role of monopoly rents from the welfare loss imposed by the number of physicians supplied being less than the number of physicians demanded. Which parties practice rent seeking? Does this create a deadweight loss or increase market efficiency?

In the absence of a profit motive, the primary motive of government bureaucrats is so called "kingdom building," that is, maximizing the number of government employees.

Information on the quality, emergency preparation, and any violation citation history of nursing homes is compiled and made available free of charge in the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services AHRQ data base. If a firm uses the AHRQ data and repackages it and sells it online, this is an externality.

Which of the following statements is false?