In this paper we present three simple theoretical models to explain the influence of the possibility to make non-binding announcements on future investment behaviour in public good settings. Our models build on the idea that voluntary contributions to the supply of a public good might be...

Socially responsible investment in analyzed in a general equilibrium context. This is important in order to understand the ultimate consequences of SRI on the decisions of economic agents. Building on models by Brock (1982) and Merton (1987), SRI is modelled as the choice to voluntarily give up...

In this paper, the problem of negotiating an abatement agreement is approached from the perspective of the theory of public goods in a general equilibrium context. Such an approach has the appeal of simultaneously dealing with both equity and efficiency issues. Three major difficulties in...

The aim of the paper is twofold: to carry out a contingent valuation study of "Napoli Musei Aperti", a cultural public good provided by the city of Naples, and to explore some alternative schemes of cultural policy. The paper is divided in two parts. In the first one some results from the...

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...

The literature on public goods has shown that efficient outcomes are impossible if participation constraints have to be respected. This paper addresses the question whether they should be imposed. It asks under what conditions efficiency considerations justify that individuals are forced to pay...

In the recent literature, several hypotheses have been put forward in order to explain the decline of contributions in repeated public good games. We present results of an experiment which allows to evaluate these hypotheses. The main characteristics of our experimental design are a variation of...

In this article we apply and extend the model elaborated by Acemoglu and Verdier in their seminal paper (2000), to examine how the economy represented in their theoretical framework responds to an exogenous change in the agent's incentive. In particular, we focus on the consequences of a famous...

We propose a two dimensional infinite horizon model of public consumption in which investments are decided by a winner-take-all election. Investments in the two public goods create a linkage across periods and parties have different specialities. We show that the incumbent party vote share...

The prospect of receiving a monetary sanction for free riding has been shown to increase contributions to public goods. We ask whether the impulse to punish is unresponsive to the cost to the punisher, or whether, like other preferences, it interacts with prices to generate a conventional demand...