Discussion of the marginal cost of public funds with distortionary taxation are often cast in the framework of a one-consumer economy, while the main justification of distortionay taxes is that they are needed for distribution. This paper analyzes the issue in a model with heterogeneous...

This has demonstrated the rationale for allowing for winners and losers contingent valuation. In addition, it has shown how appropriate measures of welfare gains as well as loses can be elicited in dichotomous choice contingent valuation.

We study the residential choice of siblings who are altruistic towards their parents. If some siblings moves further away, he or she can shift some of the burden of takin care for the parents to his or her siblings. Thus, siblings have a strategic incentive to move away that only children do not...

It is common to explain the market failure in efficiently distributing the population among urban areas by externalities associated with unpriced transportation congestion and external scale economies in the supply of private and public goods. Consequently, in prescribing the appropriate...

In a two-stage public goods experiment, we study the framing effect due to the adoption of a cultural context. Our results show a slight increase in the allocations of subjects’ endowments to the cultural good when the cultural context is implemented in the laboratory. In particular, in one...

We report evidence from public goods experiments with and without punishment which we conducted in Russia with 566 urban and rural participants of young and mature age cohorts. Russia is interesting for studying voluntary cooperation because of its long history of collectivism, and a huge...

This paper analyzes the provision of local public goods with positive spillovers across jurisdictions. If spillovers are symmetric, the noncooperative game played by jurisdictions admits a unique equilibrium, and an increase in spillovers reduces the total provision of public goods. Smaller...

Recent economic research has focused on the economic effects of the social environment. In the economic literature, important phenomena are considered, at least in part, as results of the individual's social environment. There is a similar revival of interest among economists who analyse the...

This paper studies federalism in a "menu auction" or common agency setting where influence costs depend on the heterogeneity of preferences over allowed policies. Though localized provision and uniformity constraints may preclude efficient policies, they reduce influence costs and may enhance...