In this paper, we consider the problem that a benevolent designer wants to provide a non-excludable public good with a fixed cost to agents with privately known valuations. Adopting utilitarian's point of view, the designer maximizes the ex-ante total utility of all agents. The impossibility...

We analyze a game in which a group of agents exert costly effort over time to make progress on a project. The project is completed once the cumulative efforts reach a pre-specified threshold, at which point it generates a lump sum payoff. We characterize a budget balanced mechanism that induces...

We consider a dynamic game of private provision of a discrete public good. In our model, a group of agents contributes to a project over time, which is completed once the cumulative contributions reach a threshold. Provided that this occurs prior to a prespecified deadline, each agent receives a...

Research on collective provision of private goods has focused on distributional considerations. This paper studies a class of problems of decision under uncertainty in which an efficiency argument for collective choice emerges from the mathematics of aggregating individual payoffs. Consider...

This paper compares two methods to encourage socially optimal provision of a public good. We compare the efficacy of vigilante justice, as represented by peer-to-peer punishment, to delegated policing, as represented by the “hired gun” mechanism, to deter free riding and improve group...

We revisit the classical result that taxation of private consumption is distortionary and therefore precludes the efficient provision of public goods. We introduce a nonlinear consumption tax which we call a ‘tax lottery’. Under this scheme, an ad-valorem consumption tax is supplemented with...

The body of literature on purely democratic countries can sometimes fail to explain the behavior of government in semi-democratic African countries. Empirical and theoretical political economic papers find that public funds target ruling party supporters and swing districts. Our results,...

We propose a new approach to the normative analysis of public-good provision in a large economy. Our analysis is based on a mechanism design approach that involves a requirement of coalition-proofness, as well as a requirement of robustness, so that the mechanism must not depend on specific...

The paper addresses the welfare implications of conditional grants if government failure leads to inefficiencies in the production of regional public goods and services. Conditional grants may improve welfare by setting incentives for regions to improve efficiency. At the same time, resources...

A novel version of a Voluntary Contribution Mechanism game tests how player cooperation responds to changes in incentives, i.e., payoffs that depend on performance relative to different reference groups. Cooperation is greatest when players are competing against players in other four-person...