A government sets the level of taxation in order to provide a public good valued by consumers. There are two groups of consumers, the rich and the poor. The government has redistributive preferences, but is initially constrained to use lump sum taxation. This potentially leads the government to...

We conduct an experimental analysis of signaling games using three models of arbitration. In the signaling model, the informed party in the dispute makes a settlement demand to the uninformed party. In conventional arbitration (CA), the arbitrator is free to impose her preferred settlement. In...

Individuals engaged in rent seeking accumulate sector specific human capital through learning-by-doing. If agents specialize, small reforms of the trade regime may fail to reduce the level of the rent-seeking activity. The size of the reform necessary to induce movement out of rent seeking is...

Morgan (2000) has shown that lotteries are potentially an effective mechanism for the provision of public goods. In particular, he has shown that lotteries lead to a level of provision above the level provided by the voluntary contributions mechanism. In this paper, we analyze the effect of...

Matching is a commonly used fund-raising tactic, whereby small donors have their donation to a charity matched via a fund established by large donors. I develop a model in which a single large donor decides whether to establish a matching fund or contribute to the public good via the voluntary...

The existence of lawsuits providing plaintiffs a negative expected value (NEV) at trial has important theoretical implications for signaling models of litigation. The signaling equilibrium possible absent NEV suits breaks down with NEV suits because plaintiffs do not have a credible threat to...