We test an assortative mechanism whereby groups are formed endogenously, through the use of voting. Once formed, groups play a public-goods game, where the social value of an incremental contribution to the group account increases with the size of the group. Societies of nine people are...

In this paper I examine the relationship between Pareto-optimality and group size in linear public goods games or experiments. In particular, I use the standard setting of homogeneous linear public goods experiments and apply a recently developed tool to identify all Pareto-optimal allocations...

This paper provides a narrative of the emergence of the standard textbook definition of public goods. It focuses on Richard A. Musgrave's contribution in defining public goods as non-rival and non-excludable — from 1937 to 1973. Although Samuelson's mathematical definition is generally used in...

Antonio De Viti de Marco is perhaps the most representative scholar at the origin of the Italian tradition in Public Finance: this paper follows the path of his teaching from 1886 up until the final draft of 1939. Interest is, however, limited to the justification of public intervention on the...

Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) has been incredibly influential generally and within economics, and it remains important despite some historical and conceptual flaws. Hardin focused on the stress population growth inevitably placed on environmental resources....

Economic behavior often takes place in groups of small numbers of peopleinteracting with each other (like work teams, neighborhoods, socialnetworks, etc.). Characteristic of such interaction is the development of(affective) interpersonal relationships, or social ties. According tosociologists,...

The formation of social ties is examined in an experimental study of voluntary public good provision. The experiment consists of three parts. In the first part the value orientation (attitude to a generalized other) ismeasured. In the second part couples play 25 periods of a public good game. In...

There is ample evidence for a "democracy premium". Laws that have been implemented via election lead to a more cooperative behavior compared to a top-down approach. This has been observed using field data and laboratory experiments. We present evidence from Chinese students and workers who...

Policies and explicit private incentives designed for self-regarding individuals sometimes are less effective or even counterproductive when they diminish altruism, ethical norms and other social preferences. Evidence from 51 experimental studies indicates that this crowding out effect is...

Cartels are inherently instable. Each cartelist is best off if it breaks the cartel, while the remaining firms remain loyal. If firms interact only once, if products are homogenous, if firms compete in price, and if marginal cost is constant, theory even predicts that strategic interaction...