Though widespread, the practice of public subsidies for cultural activity lacks a rigorous and consistent economic rationale. We analyze a canonical market structure that characterizes much cultural activity: the competition of mass-produced goods with heterogeneous non-standardized goods that...

To analyze the effect of asset inequality on cooperation within a group, we consider a two-player noncooperative model of conservation of a common-pool resource (CPR): a fishery. We give necessary and sufficient conditions such that conservation is a Nash equilibrium, and we show that increasing...

In a model where cooperation is beneficial, but subject to cheating, and is supported by trigger strategy punishments in a repeated game, we explore the relationship between the nature of cooperation (size and composition of coalitions) and underlying inequality in the distribution of private...

It is sometimes argued that political competition yields benefits to the citizens just as competition in economic markets yields benefits to consumers. We consider the economic costs and benefits of political competition and find that the story is somewhat more complicated. We first review the...

In this paper we analyze the effects of wealth inequality on the provision of public goods and management of common-property resources (CPR) when there are market imperfections in inputs that are complementary in production to the collective good. We show that for public goods inequality impedes...

When asymmetry or non-verifiability of information, or non-excludability of users, makes contracts incomplete or unenforceable, and where for these and other reasons there are impediments to efficient bargaining, we show that private contracting will not generally assign the control of assets...

A common presumption is that decentralization is prone to a potential pitfall owing to the greater vulnerability of local governments to capture by local elites. We investigate the determinants of relative capture of local and national governments theoretically, in the context of an extended...