Talk:Lindahl tax/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk • contribs • count) 12:36, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

First comments

My first impression is that it is the start of a good article, but that it fails to meet the GA criteria, because it is using a handout or lecture notes as its source for most points, rather than high quality most reliable sources.

Here are some books worth consideration as HQMRs:

• Laffont, Jean-Jacques (1988). "2.4 Lindahl equilibrium, 2.5.3 Majority voting or the law of the median voter". Fundamentals of public economics. MIT. pp. 41–43, 51–53. ISBN 0-262-12127-1, 978-0-262-12127-9. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); External link in |publisher= (help)
• Salanié, Bernard (2000). "5.2.3 The Lindahl equilibrium". Microeconomics of market failures (English translation of the (1998) French Microéconomie: Les défaillances du marché (Economica, Paris) ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 74–75. ISBN 0-262-19443-0, 978-0-262-19443-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

You cite Duncan Foley's famous thesis. This makes me think that Varian's articles on fairness may be relevant as well as related papers and books by Mas-Colell, etc.

I also suspect that this article needs to be put in the context of mechanism design and incentive compatibility (Hurwitcz, Groves, Ledyard, Reiter, etc.).

There may be a concern about OR, also. It would be good to be careful about examples, and in particular to cite HQMRs for each, when possible, so that a reviewer may judge whether the OR be trivial or substantial.

Finally, you need some work on English style, for example replacing vague phrases like "Samuelson is very renowned" with something specific and informative: E.g., Samuelson, an editor of the IEA volume on public finance (if that is true---or Samuelson, the winner of some award for his work on public economics ...) .... You might ask for help at the Economics Project (which has several good editors) or the League of Copy editors.

Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:36, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I made the following comments on my talk page:

I would underscore that it looks good. I suspect that you can short work of it with a few afternoons of editing, upgrading the citations to lecture notes with citations to leading books, etc. I forgot to mention other good books on public economics, such as David Starrett's Cambridge book, which is Wikified at the Shapley-Folkman lemma, Convexity in economics, Non-convexities (economics) etc.:

• Starrett, David A. (1988). "5 Planning mechanisms (pp. 65–72), 16 Practical methods for large project evaluation (Groves–Clarke mechanism, pp. 270–271)". Foundations of public economics. Cambridge economic handbooks. Vol. XVI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 65–72, 270–271. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

I should think that a reference to Atkinson and Stiglitz would be mandatory, also.

Another suggestion would be to simplify the labeling of the axes for your diagrams, a lot! :) Let the captions and the text do the work, and have minimal axis-labeling: This also allows others to use your diagrams for other articles, here and in other languages.

UPDATE: I added chapter and page references to Laffont (which does discuss the problems of incentive compatibility and implementation, as I had remembered), Salanié, and Starrett. I would also suggest using the New Palgrave article(s) on Lindahl Equilibrium.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:08, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Conclusion Problems remain with close paraphrasing and lack of reliable sources, besides problems of English style. Therefore, this article needs substantial work to be credibly considered for GA review.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of June 21, 2024, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Fail As noted before, copy editing is needed.

2. Factually accurate?: Fail

The article is based on internet-accessible lecture notes, from the economics departments of two leading universities; while credible sources that seem to be well written and trustworthy, these sources fall short of the WP:RS standard, particularly when so many good references are available. I suggested three high-quality, most-reliable sources for consultation; the New Palgrave should be consulted, also.

3. Broad in coverage?: Fail

For the most part, the treatment seems adequate. However, Lindahl equilibrium is related to other economic topics, particularly to demand revelation and incentive compatibility issues, which are discussed briefly in Laffont and Starrett, for example. The end of the article should mention such topics, briefly.

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass

Difficult to assess, because of the (quickly fixable) problems of 2 & 3. However, I see no reason to suspect NPOV violations.

5. Article stability? Pass/Fail?

I am concerned that the warnings about copy-and-pasting were not fully acted upon. My brief review of these sources showed examples of close paraphrasing, which might suggest failing the article on these points.

6. Images?: Pass

The images should be simplified, but seem to meet the GA criteria otherwise.

Sincerely and with best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)