We study whether "coercive" public provision or voluntary private provision of public goods can survive when individuals who "vote with their feet" can choose between communities that differ in the way that public goods are provided. We obtain the following findings: (i) an equilibrium always...

NOTE: The following is a description of the paper and not the actual abstract. We study whether compulsory public provision or voluntary private provision of public goods can survive when individuals who "vote with their feet" can choose between communities that differ in the way that public...

This paper studies the dynamics of property ownership, appropriation, and consent in autocratic political systems. An autocrat representing the interests of an in-group chooses whether and how much to appropriate from public and private assets at each date. To maintain the appearance of the rule...

Authoritarian regimes often rely on targeting - unequal application of the law to isolate internal "enemies." At the same time, modern autocrats' methods of social control appear less draconian than those in the past. This study analyzes a dynamic model of authoritarian control. In the model, a...

This article examines optimal social linkage when each individual's repeated interaction with each of his neighbors creates spillovers. Each individual's discount factor is randomly determined. A planner chooses a local interaction network or neighborhood design before the discount factors are...

This paper examines the issue of multiplicity of equilibria in alternating move repeated games with two players. Such games are canonical models of environments with repeated, asynchronous choices due to inertia or replacement. We focus our attention on Markov Perfect equilibria (MPE). These are...

This paper characterizes the asymptotic behavior of an ongoing society facing a repeated coordination problem. This society has a certain demographic structure: generations of individuals asynchronously supercede their "parents," creating an entry/exit process that allows individuals with...

This paper examines optimal social linkage when each individual's repeated interaction with each of his neighbors creates spillovers. Each individual's discount factor is randomly determined. A planner chooses a local interaction network or neighborhood design before the discount factors are...