The open source paradigm is often defined as a collaborative effort, implying that firms and consumers come together in a non-competitive climate. We show here that open source development can arise from a competitive climate. Under competition, we find that open source is the surplus maximizing...

One version of the Coase Theorem is, If property rights are fully allocated, competition leads to efficient allocations. This version implies that the public goods problem can be solved by allocating property rights fully. We show that this mechanism is not likely to work well in economies with...

Статья представляет собой фрагмент из будущей книги автора <Рождение теории. Разговоры с известными экономистами> и посвящена полемике с Р. Масгрейвом. Основной предмет дискуссии - теория общественных благ и...</Рождение>

We develop a model that allows for public goods and status signaling through charitable contributions. This model provides a unified framework in which contributions are driven both by altruism and status signaling. We use this setup to re-examine the conventional practice of rendering a...

This Article is written as two discrete, independently accessible topical sections. The first topical section, presented in Part I of this Article, is a case study of Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch and the impact of a flawed merger execution on the board's subsequent decisions....

The optimal income tax model under the threat of migration is extended to include both indirect taxes and public goods. This has enabled us to check that: 1) optimal income tax rates are higher than in the absence of indirect taxes and, at the top of the skills distribution, may be positive; 2)...

To avoid the dangerous consequences of climate change, humans need to overcome two intertwined conflicts. First, they have to deal with an intra-generational conflict that emerges from the allocation of costs of climate change mitigation among different actors of the current generation. Second,...

The UNESCO World Heritage List contains the 900 most treasured Sites of humanity's culture and landscapes.The World Heritage List is beneficial where heritage sites are undetected, disregarded by national decision-makers, not commercially exploitable, and where national financial resources,...

This article is the first attempt to study the empirical link between income aspirations and cooperation in a one shot public good game. By combining experimental with survey data, we find evidence that the more frustrated people are with their income, the lower is their propensity to cooperate...

We argue that when externalities such as pollution are nonexcludable, agents must be compelled to participate in a “mechanism” to ensure a Pareto-efficient outcome. We survey some of the main findings of the mechanism-design (implementation-theory) literature – such as the Nash...