When is the Pareto optimal amount of public goods independent of income distribution? Subject to some regularity conditions, the answer is when preferences of every individual i can be represented by a utility function of the form U(X_i,Y)=A(Y)X_i+B_i(Y) where X_i is i's consumption of private goods and Y is the amount of public goods.

We devise and apply a new method for estimating demand for local public goods from survey data. Individuals' responses to questions about whether they wanted more, less, or the same amount of various local public goods are combined with observations of their incomes, tax rates, and the amounts of actual spending in their home communities. Parameter estimates turn out to be quite similar to those found with studies like Bergstrom and Goodman's study based on total expenditures across communities.