An empirical literature has found that neighborhood heterogeneity lowers people's likelihood of contributing to public goods. We show that the estimated effect of any concave neighborhood characteristic on behavior may be biased when “large” rather than “small” neighborhoods are used....

We propose an allocation mechanism for publicly providing a private good such that the final allocation is independent of income yet increasing in strength of preference or need. The 'pay or wait' mechanism consists of offering the good for sale at two outlets. The 'queuing' outlet charges a low...