Public Service Doc

Public Service

Characteristics[edit source | editbeta]

A public service may sometimes have the characteristics of a public good (being non-rivalrous and non-excludable), but most are services which may (according to prevailing social norms) be under-provided by the market. In most cases public services are services, i.e. they do not involve manufacturing of goods. They may be provided by local or national monopolies, especially in sectors which are natural monopolies.

They may involve outputs that are hard to attribute to specific individual effort and/or hard to measure in terms of key characteristics such as quality. They often require high levels of training and education. They may attract people with a public service ethos who wish to give something to the wider public or community through their work.

History[edit source | editbeta]

Historically, the widespread provision of public services in developed countries usually began in the late nineteenth century, often with the municipal development of gas and water services. Later, other services such as electricity and healthcare began to be provided by governments. In most developed countries such services are still provided by local or national government, the biggest exceptions being the U.S. and the UK, where private provision is more significant. Nonetheless, such privately provided public services are often strongly regulated, for example (in the US) by Public Utility Commissions.

In developing countries public services tend to be much less well developed. For example, water services might only be available to the wealthy middle class. For political reasons the service is often subsidised, which reduces the finance available for expansito poorer communities.

A public service is a service which is provided by government to people living within its jurisdiction, either directly (through the public sector) or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus...