Alekseenko D. Institutional environment of local public goods production

Alekseenko D.D. Institutional environment of local public goods production. - On the rights of the manuscript. Thesis for a Candidate Degree of Economics, specialty 08.00.01 – Economic Theory and History of Economic Thought. – National Technical University “Dnipro Polytechnic”, Dnipro, 2020. The thesis establishes the relationship between the institutional environment and the efficiency of production of local public goods, as well as practical recommendations for activating the institutions of collective interaction in solving the problem of providing such goods in Ukraine. Based on the study of the evolution of views of representatives of different schools and directions of economic thought on the nature and causes of public goods, major problems in this area have been identified, the main of which is the inefficiency of the state to produce such goods in the public sector. This problem is elaborated to a deeper level and is presented as the impossibility of identifying real social benefits, the presence of rent-oriented behavior, which creates a problem of combining the interests of subjects to achieve collective goals and, consequently, the nature and mechanisms of their coordination in the production of public goods. It is shown that such a mechanism could be the adherence to generally accepted norms and rules of conduct, which reduces the likelihood of freeriding and helps reduce transaction costs. The qualitative parameters of the community, which is able to generate a collective interest in the production of local public goods, are highlighted. In order to increase efficiency, it is proposed to narrow the scope of public goods to the local level, based on the criterion of institutional proximity of entities, and transfer a number of goods traditionally provided by the state in the area of control and / or production by local communities. The role of trust in improving the efficiency of production of local public goods is analyzed in view of the problems of contract process management and the level of transaction costs. The mechanism of implicit contracting between the producer (state) and the consumer (citizens) concerning the production of a certain volume of public goods is revealed. This type of contract is identified as a specific form of contractual relationship, which, in contrast to standard agreements, has certain distinctive features.