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...

We characterize the outcomes of games when players may make binding offers of strategy contingent side payments before the game is played. This does not always lead to efficient outcomes, despite complete information and costless contracting. The characterizations are illustrated in a series of...

We propose a two dimensional infinite horizon model of public consumption in which investments are decided by a winner-take-all election. Investments in the two public goods create a linkage across periods and parties have different specialities. We show that the incumbent party vote share...

The recent literature suggests that people have social preferences with a self-serving bias. Our data analysis reveals that the stylized fact of declining cooperation in repeated public goods experiments results from this bias and adaptation.

This paper proves an equilibrium selection result for a class of games with strategic substitutes. Specifically, for a general class of binary action, N-player games, we prove that each such game has a unique equilibrium strategy profile. Using a global game approach first introduced by Carlsson...

We study whether "coercive" public provision or voluntary private provision of public goods can survive when individuals who "vote with their feet" can choose between communities that differ in the way that public goods are provided. We obtain the following findings: (i) an equilibrium always...

We ask whether communication can directly substitute for memory in dynastic repeated games in which short lived individuals care about the utility of their offspring who replace them in an infinitely repeated game. Each individual is unable to observe what happens before his entry in the game....

In a repeated game with private information, a perfect public equilibrium (PPE) can break down if communication is not necessarily simultaneous or if players can “spy” on each others’ information. An ex post perfect public equilibrium (EPPPE) is a PPE that is ex post incentive compatible...

In this paper we address the question of collusion in mechanisms under asymmetric information by assuming that one of the colluding parties offers a side contract to the other one. We develop a methodology to analyze collusion as an informed principal problem. We show that if collusion occurs...

In this paper the Signalling approach to the explanation of wage differentials is analyzed both under a microeconomic and a macroeconomic viewpoint. Departuring from the classical Spence's model, the introduction of inequalities in accessing to education leads to redistributive effects among...