The Ostroms and the contestable nature of goods: beyond taxonomies and toward institutional polycentricity

This paper builds on the Ostroms' oeuvre to suggest that the binary Samuelsonian taxonomy of goods – or the ‘sterile dichotomy’, as Elinor Ostrom calls it – cannot serve as a reliable guide for public policy. Using the Ostroms' insights on co-production, institutional matching, and polycen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of institutional economics Vol. 17; no. 1; pp. 71 - 89
Main Authors: Rayamajhee, Veeshan, Paniagua, Pablo
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.02.2021
Subjects:
Civil society
Classification
Consumption
Debates
Economic theory
Ostrom, Elinor (1933-2012)
Public goods
Public policy
Public sector
Social order
Taxonomy
Ostroms
Contestability
typology of goods
polycentricity
public goods
ISSN:1744-1374, 1744-1382
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This paper builds on the Ostroms' oeuvre to suggest that the binary Samuelsonian taxonomy of goods – or the ‘sterile dichotomy’, as Elinor Ostrom calls it – cannot serve as a reliable guide for public policy. Using the Ostroms' insights on co-production, institutional matching, and polycentricity, we argue that the ‘inherent’ nature of goods and their specific taxonomy are not static and definitive concepts but are instead contestable and dynamic features that are institutionally contingent. We explore four crucial mechanisms and/or contexts, not altogether unrelated, whereby the nature of goods becomes contestable and malleable: namely, (1) technological and geographical factors, (2) coproduction and entrepreneurial ingenuity, (3) bundling and unbundling of services, and (4) ideologies and regime shifts. This exercise has twofold purposes. First, we generalize the notion that there is nothing ‘inherent’ in the nature of goods and services and that they are fluid, heterogeneous, and malleable concepts. Second, we contribute to the debate on the provision of public goods and the role of civil society by highlighting the need for institutional malleability and diversity adaptive to changing technology, contexts, and institutional conditions.
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ISSN:1744-1374
1744-1382
DOI:10.1017/S1744137420000338