We study the interdependence of optimal tax and expenditure policies. An optimal policy requires that information on preferences is made available. We first study this problem from a general mechanism design perspective and show that efficiency is possible only if the individuals who decide on...

We introduce reward money into the provision point mechanism with refunds. Reward money is distributed among the contributors in proportion to their contributions only when the provision point is not reached. In environments without aggregate uncertainty, the provision point is always reached in...

We study optimal pricing rules for a public large-value payment system (LVPS) that produces a public good (like prevention of systemic risk) but faces competition by a private LVPS for the private provision of large value payments. We show that the marginal cost of the public LVPS has to be...

In this paper we study the welfare effects of monetary policy in a simple overlapping generation economy in which agents voluntarily contribute to a public good. Inflation has two effects at equilibrium: it increases voluntary contributions and it misallocates private consumption across time. We...

In this paper we consider the effect of ambiguity on the private provision of public goods. Equilibrium is shown to exist and be unique. We examine how provision of the public good changes as the size of the population increases. We show that when there is uncertainty there may be less...

We provide a comprehensive survey of the recent literature on the link between productive government expenditure and economic growth. Starting with the seminal paper of Robert Barro (1990) we show that an understanding of the core results of the ensuing contributions can be gained from the study...

This paper examines the questions of who participates in the provision of a public good through the voluntary participation of agents in the presence of strong complementarity between a public good and a private good. We show that the greater the initial endowment of the private good that agents...

Traditionally, economists make a sharp distinction between stated and revealed preferences, viewing the latter as more fully meeting the assumptions of economic analysis. Here, we consider one form of empirical evidence regarding this belief: the consistency of choices in stated and revealed...

This paper examines the role of simplified heuristics in the formation of preferences for public goods. Political scientists have suggested that voters use simplified heuristics based on the positions of familiar parties to infer how a proposed policy will affect them and to cast a vote in line...