Using data from 1960-2000 for OECD countries, we analyze the impact of compulsory military service on the demand for higher education, measured by students enrolled in tertiary education as a share of the working-age population. Based on a theoretical model, we hypothesize that military draft...

The private provision of public goods suffers from two potential types of efficiency failures: non-optimal output levels of the public good (quantity problem) and an inefficient mix of contributors and non-contributors (sorting problem). Embedding the provision game into a contest that rewards...

Governments often provide their citizens with goods and services that are also supplied in markets: education, housing, nutritional assistance, etc. We analyze the political economy of the public provision of private goods when individuals care about their social image. We show that image...