In some bargaining situations – for example, collaborative policy-making and compulsory arbitration – a third party imposes a backstop position that differs from the status quo. Axiomatic models of cooperative bargaining presume that the status quo in such cases will have no effect...

In many cases governments invite interest groups to use collaborative bargaining to resolve environmental conflicts. If the parties fail to reach agreement, the government threatens to impose a backstop policy. Bargaining models have predicted that any agreements will be influenced, variously,...

In New Zealand, the primary means of addressing the disparities that exist in educational outcomes by students’ socio-economic status is the “decile” funding system. The country’s Ministry of Education uses census data on five socio-economic deprivation factors of the households...

We examine the provision of family public goods using experimental economics methods. With sufficient altruism and shared resource arrangements, families can provide the efficient level of family public goods. Becker's Rotten Kid Theorem asserts that transfers from altruistic parents will induce...

To date, much of the policy and research debate on contingent valuation mode effects has relied on experiences drawn from other research disciplines. This study provides the first contingent valuation phone-mail comparison that meets current standards for response rates, draws from a general...