We explore whether natural human competitiveness can be exploited to stimulate charitable giving in a controlled laboratory experiment involving three different treatments of a sequential ``dictator game.'' Without disclosing the actual amounts given and kept, in each period players are publicly...

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...

This paper investigates differences in the rate of growth of population across the large city-regions of the EU12 between 1980 and 2000. The US model which assumes perfect factor mobility does not seem well adapted to European conditions. There is evidence strongly suggesting that equilibrating...

This paper considers a dynamic model of Tiebout-like migration between communities that utilize distinct allocation procedures for public goods. At issue is whether voluntary or compulsory procedures are more likely to prevail over time. We model infinitely lived individuals who make repeated,...

There are concerns that regional inequality in India has increased after the economic reforms of 1991. This concern is supported by various statistical analyses. In this paper, we show that the conclusions are sensitive to what measures of attainment are used. In particular, human development...

In models of economic geography, plant-level scale economies and trade costs create incentives for spatial agglomeration of production into a manufacturing core and agricultural periphery, creating regional income differentials. We examine tax competition between national governments to...

New Zealand is unusual in that nearly 60% of local services are funded from property taxes. These are a mixture of land taxes, capital value taxes, annual rental value taxes and uniform general charges. We explore the efficiency and equity of this system at both national and local levels. We...

The trust building process is basic to social science. We investigate it in a laboratory setting using a novel multi-stage trust game where social gains are achieved if players trust each other in each stage. And in each stage, players have an opportunity to appropriate these gains or be...

Some of the most fundamental questions concerning our evolutionary origins, our social relations, and the organization of society are centred around issues of altruism and selfishness. Experimental evidence indicates that human altruism is a powerful force and is unique in the animal world....

Two alternative models of parental investments in children's human capital are considered and tested empirically using the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS). The pure loan model and the reciprocity with two-sided altruism model yield different predictions about the effect of children's...