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Consolidation or Diversity: Choices in the Structure of Urban Governance: DISCUSSION.
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- Author(s): Nelson, Richard R.
- Source:
American Economic Review. May76, Vol. 66 Issue 2, p389. 3p.
- Subject Terms:
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- Subject Terms:
- Abstract:
"Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" is a book that has excited many people. One reason is that there are a lot of good ideas in the book. The author proposes that the ideas are at least three different levels. At the most general level, "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" is a complaint about the narrowness of much economic thinking regarding ways to control economic activity and a proposal that broaden and enrich people's thinking. There is a suggestion that economists can learn something by reading in other disciplines, particularly political science. At another level, "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" is a proposal for dividing up the ways in which control can be exercised into two broad categories, exit and voice. Once one recognizes diversity, one is tempted to provide some useful categories of control. Exit-and-voice is a particular categorization. At still another level there are a number of analytic propositions about the relationship of exit and voice to various variables, and the interaction between the two. For example, it is proposed that the use of exit erodes the power of voice, that in many cases the exit of demanders of high quality leads to an organization that provides shoddy quality and hence that exit imposes a negative externality on those who remain, etc.