The European Union Review 

Biens publics et régionalisation

Christian Aubin - Faculté de Sciences Economiques de Poitiers, France

Abstract

Excludability plays a secondary role in the definition of a public good but it is of primary importance in the determination of the level at which it is offered. Hence, one may question the relevance of a regional area, uniting sovereign countries, as the right place to supply international public goods. Two complementary approaches are used to deal with this question. The first one reminds of the justifications that can be invoked from a normative point of view. The second one takes a positive point of view to outline further reasons that can explain the transfer of the supply of public goods from the national level to a higher regional level. As a complement, the analysis presents various types of institutional organisation that can be implemented to manage the supply of public goods at the regional level.