經濟學上的公共財理論一直以來都是傳統都市規劃與治理的核心議題。然而，1950 年代所提出的公共財理論與立基在於該理論的傳統都市規劃與治理的實踐並不成功。因此，西方經濟與規劃學者也分別對此做了更進一步的討論與反省。尤其應用新制度經濟學的觀念重新闡釋公共財與都市治理的關係，產生不少洞見，也值得臺灣規劃或地理界參考。從近來西方規劃學者的討論中發現，純粹的公共財在現實世界中其實很少，大多皆是俱樂部財貨性質的共享性資源，且這些具共享性的俱樂部財，具有多種屬性，會因社會與經濟的情勢與所屬的時空而有不同的制度安排。因此，在理論與實際案例上，都可發現公共財的提供與都市治理非只有政府而已，共享性資源的提供，存有很多都市治理結構的可能。而交易成本理論更可以提供都市治理結構的制度選擇範圍與其制度特性。這些新的討論與新制度經濟學的觀點，都對臺灣都市治理與規劃體制具有極高的啟發與參考價值。

The theory of public goods under economic conditions has always been a core issue in traditional urban planning and governance. However, the practice of traditional urban planning and governance based on the public goods theory over the last century has not been successful, which has subsequently led to further discussions from scholars in economics and urban planning. Many western scholars apply New Institutional Economics to re-assess the concept of public goods and institutional choice, which has resulted in insightful discoveries. They may be of help to Taiwan’s
planning and geography researchers, practitioners and policy-makers. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to introduce recent discussions of and concepts about the public goods theory from western economists and planning scholars, from neo-classics economics to new institutional economics. Recent discussions show that
pure public goods are, actually, rare. The most common shared resources are club goods; these club goods have manifold characteristics, and are accessible in accordance with each club member’s societal and economic status. Therefore, from both theoretical and practical viewpoints, government does not have to be the sole supplier of public goods and urban governance. The supply of common pool resources shows that there are many possibilities for the urban governance structure. Moreover,
the transaction cost theory demonstrates the institutional spectrum of urban governance and their differences. All of these insights, based on New Institutional Economics are valuable to Taiwan’s urban planning and urban governance.