This paper characterizes the optimal contract designed by a profit-maximizing monopolist, who can provide an indivisible and excludable public good to a group of n potential consumers, whose valuations are private information. The analysis takes distribution costs and congestion effects into...

An agent can make an observable but non-contractible investment. A principal then offers to collaborate with the agent to provide a public good. Private information of the agent about his valuation may either decrease or increase his investment incentives, depending on whether he learns his type...

The government and a non-governmental organization (NGO) can invest in the provision of a public good. In an incomplete contracting framework, Besley and Ghatak (2001) have argued that the party who values the public good most should be the owner. We show that this conclusion relies on their...

When two parties invest in human capital and at the same time decide on know-how disclosure it can be shown that joint ownership with veto power is the optimal ownership structure, given that only incomplete contracts can be written.