Several studies show cases where the Samuelson rule holds, or where the marginal cost of public funds (MCF) equals one within optimized tax systems. The conditions for the original Samuelson rule to hold in these studies are quite restrictive, and MCF measures employed are not consistent with...

Apprenticeship systems are essentially based on the voluntary participation of firms that provide (and usually also finance) training positions, often incurring considerable net training costs. One potential, yet under-researched explanation for this behavior is that firms act in accordance with...

Apprenticeship systems are essentially based on the voluntary participation of firms that provide (and usually also finance) training positions, often incurring considerable net training costs. One potential, yet under-researched explanation for this behavior is that firms act in accordance with...

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...

We use a laboratory experiment to investigate the behavioral effects of obligations that are not backed by binding deterrent incentives. To implement such expressive law' we introduce different levels of very weakly incentivized, symmetric and asymmetric minimum contribution levels (obligations)...

We show that the standard trust question routinely used in social capital research is importantly related to cooperation behavior and we provide evidence on the microfoundation of this relation. We run a large-scale public goods experiment over the internet in Denmark using a design that enables...

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...

The literature on public goods has shown that e?cient 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 e?ciency considerations justify that individuals are forced to pay for...

This paper analyzes the private provision of public goods where consumers interact within a fixed network structure and may benefit only from their direct neighbors' provisions. We present a proof for existence and uniqueness of a Nash equilibrium with general best-reply functions. Our...

This paper investigates the private provision of public goods in segregated societies. While most research agrees that segregation undermines public provision, the findings are mixed for private provision: social interactions, being strong within groups and limited across groups, may either...