We use a simple balanced budget contest to collect taxes on a private good in order to ?nance a pure public good. We show that-with an appropriately chosen structure of winning probabilities-this contest can provide the public good efficiently and without distorting private consumption. We...

A budget-constrained buyer wants to purchase items from a short-listed set. Items are differentiated by observable quality and sellers have private reserve prices for their items. The buyer’s problem is to select a subset of maximal quality. Money does not enter the buyer’s...