We introduce a model of a local public goods economy with a continuum of agents and jurisdictions with finite, but unbounded populations, where the set of possible projects for each jurisdiction/club is unrestricted in size. Under boundedness of per capita payoffs, which simply ensures that...

We consider the classic puzzle of why people turn out for elections in substantial numbers even though formal analysis strongly suggests that rational agents would not vote. If one assumes that voters do not make systematic mistakes, the most plausible explanation seems to be that agents receive...

The paper distinguishes between rigid price and flexible price versions of the Prescott (1975) “hotels” model. I focus on two dynamic models that allow for storage: The Bental and Eden (1993) model of all year round goods and the more recent Deneckere and Peck (2012) model of seasonal goods....

I use the Prescott (1975) hotels model to explain variations in price dispersion across goods sold by supermarkets in Chicago. I extend the theory to accounts for the monopoly power of chains and for non-shoppers. The main empirical finding is that the effect of demand uncertainty on price...

We introduce a new approach to showing existence of equilibrium in models of economies with unbounded short sales. Inspired by the pioneering works of Hart (1974) on asset market models, Grandmont (1977) on temporary economic equilibrium, and of Werner (1987) on general equilibrium exchange...

In a seminal paper relating economic and game theoretic structures, Shapley and Shubik (1969) demonstrate that a game is a market game -- that is, a game derived from a finite-dimensional private goods exchange economy where all participants have continuous, concave utility functions. In this...

We introduce a new approach to showing existence of equilibrium in models of economies with unbounded short sales. Inspired by the pioneering works of Hart (1974) on asset market models, Grandmont (1977) on temporary economic equilibrium, and of Werner (1987) on general equilibrium exchange...

This article provides an introduction to the use of social welfare functions for the comparative evaluation of social alternatives. Three main approaches are considered: Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, Arrovian social welfare functions, and Sen's social welfare functionals....

Majority voting over the nonlinear tax schedules proposed by a continuum of citizen candidates is considered. The analysis extends the finite-individual model of Röell (unpublished manuscript, 2012). Each candidate proposes the tax schedule that is utility maximal for him subject to budget and...

In Democratic Reason, Hélène Landemore has built a case for the epistemic virtues of inclusive deliberative democracy based on the cognitive diversity of the group engaged in making collective decisions. She supports her thesis by appealing to the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem of Lu Hong...