財政學問題（其實是看不太懂英文） - 經濟

以下是財政原文課本的兩個段落，這個章節主要在講「美國的移轉支付」的問題（公共選
擇的觀點下），其中其實有五六個段落是老師要求我們自己讀，基本上是希望我們理解「
人們為什麼會從自私到願意捐錢給社會福利機構」的問題，我打的是比較難懂也比較重要
的兩個段落，老師要我們讀的範圍我大概還ok，[ ] 的部份還好， ” ”的部份則是幾乎
無法理解，如果各位大大能整體提一下我將會非常感激，若沒有很多時間的大大，能夠幫
助我引號的部份我也萬分感謝！！！

這是期中考考題...老師目前堅持不公佈答案...只好求救於...各位大大...T^T

Q：詳細比較公共選擇觀點（public choice perspective）與主流觀點（mainstream
view）對社會保險（social security）與社會救濟（social assistance）的看法的異同
。
The Public Choice Perspective on Public Assistance（這是課本那段標題）
下面取三段

People may be self-interested, but they also clearly have altruistic or
charitable impulses that contribute to their own utility. We know this
because many people contribute to private charities and their contributions
are entirely voluntary. These contributions obviously increase the donor’s
own utility or they would not be given. Public assistance can be viewed as an
extension of private charity – the free-rider problem.

Before looking at the free-rider problem associated with charitable giving,
note the subtle difference in the mainstream and public choice views of
public assistance. [[[ The mainstream, social welfare view of public assistance
sees it as a win-lose proposition. When wearing their other-interested hats
and thinking about distributive justice, people conclude that public
assistance is appropriate. """They would rather not pay the taxes to support
public assistance from their narrow self-interested economic perspective, but
they reluctantly do so to support the public interest in end-results equity.
Under this line of thought, public assistance is viewed as a win-lose
proposition: the poor beneficiaries of public assistance gain utility but the
nonpoor lose utility when they pay their taxes. Not so under the public
choice perspective.""" Voluntary gifts to private charities are clearly a
win-win proposition: the donors gain utility along with the beneficiaries of
their gifts. Since public assistance is just an extension of private charity,
it too is a win-win proposition. ]]]

Win-win proposition sound more like issues of efficiency than of equity.
Recall that inefficiencies place society below its utility possibilities
frontier. Correcting an inefficiency and returning to the frontier leads to
the possibility that everyone gains. In contrast, the mainstream view of
redistributional policies is that they move society along the utility
possibilities frontier, with the result that some people gain and others lose.

最後，不管有沒有幫忙，感謝看完的各位。

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