In this paper, the authors critique the assumption on which Robert J. Barro's dynastic model is predicated and a rgue that this framework is not a suitable abstraction in contexts in which the objective is to analyze the effects of public policies. Th ey formally consider a world in which each...

This note corrects an error in B. Douglas Bernheim's (1986) axiomatic characterization of solution concepts for strategic games. Unlike the correction offered by Olivier De Wolf and Francois Forges (1998), the approach taken here preserves Bernheim's central results concerning the...

This paper analyzes a model in which individuals care about both consumption (intrinsic utility) and social status. Status depends on public perceptions about an individual's predispositions rather than on the individual's actions. However, since predispositions are unobservable, actions signal...

This paper extends pre-existing results concerning voluntary private funding of public goods. The assumption that individuals care about themagnitude of their own contributions only insofar as these contributions affect the aggregate level of expenditures is shown to have untenable implications....