Polarization measures, that are used in examining the empirical relationship between ethnic divisions and violent conflict, heavily rely on mechanisms of group identification and often use somewhat arbitrary divisions of a society into ethnic groups. In this paper we construct two new measures...

This paper examines how and why people migrate between two regions with asymmetric size. The agglomeration force comes from the scale economies in the provision of local public goods, whereas the dispersion force comes from congestion in consumption of public goods. Public goods considered...

A profit maximising auctioneer can provide a public good to a group of agents. Each group member has a private value for the good being provided to the group. We investigate an auction mechanism where the auctioneer provides the good to the group, only if the sum of their bids exceeds a reserve...

This paper considers a government that seeks both to redistribute income and to encourage or discourage the consumption of a certain good. This good is assumed to be either a merit or demerit good. Individuals differ in their exogenous income and in their preferences for the merit good. The...

A profit-maximizing auctioneer can provide a public good to a group of agents. Each group member has a private value for the good being provided to the group. We investigate an auction mechanism where the auctioneer provides the good to the group, only if the sum of their bids exceeds a reserve...

1n two related papers, Kaneko (1977, 1977a) hILS proved an equivalence theorem relating the set of ratio equilibria of a public goods economy to the core of a strong voting game. This paper extends in two ways Kaneko's analysis to economies with jurisdictions, each producing a specific public...

The aim of this paper is to develop a dynamic model of migrations, in which migration is driven by size asymmetries between countries and by the relative preferences of consumers between private consumption and consumption of public goods. The dynamic trajectories heavily depend on the degree of...

This paper examines efficiency rationales behind uniformity of taxation for public projects. Let a benevolent risk neutral 'constitutional designer' to set an optimal cost-sharing rule for a legislature operating under majority rule. Then the designer will choose 'more equal taxes' for a country...

This paper presents an overlapping generations model of environmental externalities with a depollution technology. Each agent concerned by the environmental degradation can voluntarily contribute in order to reduce it. Contributing to the environmental quality means financing depollution...

A profit-maximizing auctioneer can provide a public good to at most one of a number of groups of agents. The groups may have non-empty intersections. Each group member has a private value for the good being provided to the group. We investigate an auction mechanism where the auctioneer provides...