How can we maximize the common good? This is a central organizing question of public policy design, across political parties and ideologies. The answer typically involves the provisioning of public goods such as fresh air, national defense, and knowledge. Public goods are costly to produce but...

What determined how governments in the Middle East and North Africa reacted to the global COVID-19 pandemic? We develop a theoretical argument based on the political costs of different policy options and assess its empirical relevance. Distinguishing between the immediate costs associated with...

This paper analyzes the provision of goods with consumption externalities (such as public policies) in hybrid settings: the `good' is provided in a democratic process by majority vote, but each individual agent is free to contribute additional amounts before or after the political decision has...

Do mandatory spending programs such as Medicare improve efficiency? We analyze a model with two parties allocating a fixed budget to a public good and private transfers each period over an infinite horizon. We compare two institutions that differ in whether public good spending is discretionary...

Two heterogeneous agents contribute over time to a joint project, and collectively decide its scope. A larger scope requires greater cumulative effort and delivers higher benefits upon completion. We show that the efficient agent prefers a smaller scope, and preferences are time-inconsistent: as...

Do mandatory spending programs such as Medicare improve efficiency? We analyze a model with two parties allocating a fixed budget to a public good and private transfers each period over an infinite horizon. We compare two institutions that differ in whether public good spending is discretionary...

Do mandatory spending programs such as Medicare improve efficiency? We analyze a model with two parties allocating a fixed budget to a public good and private transfers each period over an infinite horizon. We compare two institutions that differ in whether public good spending is discretionary...

We study a continuous-time problem of optimal public good contribution under uncertainty for an economy with a finite number of agents. Each agent can allocate his wealth between private consumption and repeated but irreversible contributions to increase the stock of some public good. We study...

We characterise the entire set of symmetric stationary Markov-perfect Nash equilibria (MPE) in a differential game of public good investment, using the canonical problem of climate change as an example. We provide a sufficient and necessary condition for MPE and show how the entire set of MPE is...

Fershtman and Nitzan (1991) presented a continuous dynamic public good game model and solved the model for feedback Nash-equilibria. Wirl (1996) extended the model and considered nonlinear strategies. Both models do not include uncertainty and hence neglect an important factor in the theory of...