We study pure redistribution as a device to increase cooperation and efficiency in the provision of public goods. Experimental subjects play a two-stage game. The first stage is the standard linear public goods game. In the second stage, subjects can redistribute payoffs among other subjects in...

In this paper, we study the effectiveness of intergroup competition in promoting cooperative behavior. We focus on intergroup competition that is non-rival in the sense that everyone can be a winner. This type of competition does not give groups an incentive to outcompete others. However, in...

The sanctioning of norm-violating behavior by an effective formal authority is an efficient solution for social dilemmas. It is in the self-interest of voters and is often favorably contrasted with letting citizens take punishment into their own hands. Allowing informal sanctions, by contrast,...

The ability of groups to implement efficiency-enhancing institutions is emerging as a central theme of research in economics. This paper explores voting on a scheme of intergroup competition which facilitates cooperation in a social dilemma situation. Experimental results show that the...

The paper studies in a simple, Downsian model of political competition how the private provision of public goods is affected when it is embedded in a system of democracy and redistributive taxation. Results show that the positive effect of inequality on public goods production, which Olson...

We develop a theoretical model in which each individual is, in some ultimate sense, motivated by purely egoistic satisfaction derived from the goods accruing to him, but there is an implicit social contract such that each performs duties for the others in a way that enhances the satisfaction of...

This text (Keser) is a survey and a discussion of experimental studies on cooperation in public goods experiments. It is followed by a comment (Montmarquette) suggesting some economic applications from these experimental studies. Ce texte (Keser) présente une revue et une discussion des écrits...

We show that the famous neutrality result in the theory of public good contributions (Warr, Kemp, Bergstrom, Blume and Varian) depends crucially on the assumption that agents do not take into account the effect of their public good contribution decisions on the relative price of the private...

This paper defines a general eqilibrium model with exchange and club formation. Agents trade multiple private goods widely in the market, can belong to several clubs, and care about the characteristics of the other members of their clubs. The space of agents is a continuum, but clubs are finite....