Existence,uniqueness and some comparative statics for ratio and Lindahl equilibria

We present a rigorous, yet elementary, demonstration of the existence of a unique Lindahl equilibrium under the assumptions that characterize the standard n-player public good model. Indeed, our approach, which exploits the aggregative structure of the public good model, lends itself to a transparent geometric representation. Moreover, it can handle the more general concept of the cost share or ratio equilibrium. Finally, we indicate how it may be exploited to facilitate comparative static analysis of Lindahl and cost share equilibria.      

公共物品自发供给与个体的偏好异质性效应分析

考察一期同时行动时,个体的偏好差异对公共物品自发供给的影响。模型在对数柯布-道格拉斯效用函数的基础上,设定了反映偏好(偏好差异量)程度的参数,分析个体们的总收入在未达到和越过公共物品生产的最小捐赠水平两种均衡状态下,个体的最佳决策及偏好异质性效应。研究结果表明:个体的偏好差异对公共物品产出的作用依赖于成员们的收入预算开支与公共物品固定成本的比较,“U”型曲线之说不合适。     

The overprovision anomaly of private public good supply

It is well known that private provision of a public good may lead to a higher supply than that in some Pareto optimal allocation. The traditional view attributes this overprovision anomaly to a specific kind of preferences. The present paper, however, shows that preferences do not play a decisive role. Assuming normality, overprovision will occur only if the distribution of income is extremely skewed and Pareto optimal allocations are not within the set of cost-share equilibria.     

Private provision of discrete public goods

We investigate private provision of discrete public goods under refund and cost-sharing. If it is commonly believed that individuals may be warm-glow altruists and the group-size is a Poisson random variable, then the equilibrium distribution of collected contributions is uniquely determined. If composition uncertainty is very small and the expected group-size sufficiently large, the distribution of contributions can be described by concentrating in a symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium. As the expected group-size increases, the probability a randomly selected player contributes and the associated expected number of contributions converge to the corresponding ones in the symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium of the game with no uncertainty.     

Is it Harmful to Allow Partial Cooperation?

In economics, politics and society, examples abound in economics, politics and society where agents can enter partial cooperation schemes, i.e., they can collude with a subset of agents. Several contributions devoted to specific settings have claimed that such partial cooperation actually worsens welfare compared to the no-cooperation situation. Our paper assesses this view by highlighting the forces that lead to such results. We find that the nature of strategic spillovers is central to determining whether partial cooperation is bad. Our propositions are then applied to various examples as industry wage bargaining or local public goods.
JEL classification: C 72; E 62; J 5     

大力发展农村合作组织 提高农村公共物品供给能力

随着农业税的取消,作为农村公共物品主要供给者的乡(镇)、村两级组织的收入大大减少,极大地影响了公共物品供给,严重制约了我国农村经济的发展和农民社会福祉的提高,成为构建社会主义新农村的一大瓶颈。文章认为,在新形势下,应充分认识到农村合作组织对缓解农村公共物品供给不足问题的重要作用,及时调整农村公共事业发展的思路,通过配套政策支持,大力发展农村合作组织,提高农村公共物品供给能力,以适应农村公共事业发展的需要。     

The core of an exchange economy with asymmetric information

This paper studies the core of an exchange economy in which agents are asymmetrically informed about states of nature. An agent's information is modelled as part of his consumption set and thus as part of his consumption plans. If an agent joins a coalition, his information changes according to an exogenously given information rule, a concept introduced by B. Allen. It is shown that an exchange economy with asymmetric information generates a well defined cooperative game and that the core of this game and thus the core of the underlying economy is nonempty. In contrast to recent results, this holds independently of the given information rule.     

Cournot-Nash and Lindahl equilibria in pure public “bad” economies

Summary. Using a general equilibrium framework, this paper analyzes the equilibrium provision of a pure public bad commodity (for example pollution). Considering a finite economy with one desired private good and one pure public “bad” we explicitly introduce the concept of Lindahl equilibrium and the Lindahl prices into a pure public bad economy. Then, the Lindahl provision is analyzed and compared with the Cournot-Nash provision. The main results for economies with heterogeneous agents state that the asymptotic Lindahl allocation of the pure public bad is the null allocation. In contrast, the asymptotic Cournot-Nash provision of the public bad might approach infinity. Other results were obtained in concert with the broad analysis of the large finite economies with pure public bad commodities. Received: July 26, 2001; revised version: March 12, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We are indebt to Nicholas Yannelis and anonymous referee for their valuable comments and suggestions. Correspondence to: B. Shitovitz     

Two-sided altruism, Lindahl equilibrium, and Pareto optimality in overlapping generations models

Summary. This paper extends the Samuelsonian overlapping generations general equilibrium framework to encompass a variety of altruistic preferences by recasting it into a Lindahl equilibrium framework. The First and the Second Welfare theorems hold for Lindahl equilibrium with respect to the Malinvaud optimality criterion but not with respect to the Pareto optimality criterion. A complete characterization of Pareto optimal allocations is provided using the Lindahl equilibrium prices.Received: 2 October 2003, Revised: 13 September 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D51, D62, D64, C62.An earlier draft of the paper was prepared for presentation at the Sixth World Congress of the Econometric Society, 1990, Barcelona, Spain. Much of this work was done when I was at Yale University and University of California-San Diego. I am grateful to an anonymous referee of this journal and to Don Brown, Vince Crawford and Joel Sobel for many insightful comments and encouragements on an earlier draft of the paper.     

Nash implementation with a private good

Summary. I construct a general model of social planning problems, including mixed production economies and regulatory problems with negative externalities as special cases, and I give simple mechanisms for Nash implementation under three increasingly general sets of assumptions. I first construct a continuous mechanism to implement the (constrained) Lindahl allocations of an economy, and I then extend this to arbitrary social choice rules based on prices. I end with a mechani sm to implement any monotonic social choice rule, assuming only the existence of a private (not necessarily transferable) good. In that general case, each agent simply reports an upper contour set, an outcome, and I need two agents to make binary numerical announcements. I do not require the usual no-veto-power condition. Received: February 19, 1998; revised version: January 30, 2002     

农村社区公共物品的农户自愿供给——基于声誉理论的分析

农户的声誉不仅能给农户带来直接效用,它还具备信息效应与资本效应,对农户参与农村社区公共物品供给博弈的均衡路径产生重要影响。在独立博弈下,声誉的直接效用能使农户采取合作行动;在关联博弈和重复博弈中,声誉的信息及资本效应对农户的偷懒行为有很强的约束,将导致博弈进入合作均衡。因此基于声誉损益的考虑,由农户自愿供给农村社区内的公共物品会是一个有效的结果。     

全球公共物品理论研究

全球公共物品理论为全球化问题的解决提供了新思路。然而,中国的学术界对于全球公共物品理论的理解,还存在莫衷一是的现象,并倾向于把全球公共物品理论与国际公共物品理论混为一谈。这不仅制约了全球公共物品理论运用的效果,也影响了该理论的发展。为此,本文通过对全球公共物品理论和国际公共物品理论的辨析,提出了应该从三个维度来理解和认识全球公共物品理论的观点,进而对全球公共物品理论对传统公共物品理论的拓展问题进行了研究,旨在为全球化问题的解决提供正确的理论基础。     

公共品供给的政府效率解及其条件分析

传统经济理论认为,在任何一个集体中,因任何一种公共品的成本分摊与收益分享,都普遍存在着\"搭便车\"者的个人理性行为以及由此导致的集体非理性的结局———人人都无\"车\"可搭的\"公共\"悲剧,断言公共品供给是市场失败的领域,必须由政府替代。用斯密的市场秩序概念来处理所有的私人品,用霍布斯的主权国家概念来处理所有的公共品,也是市场经济国家资源配置制度安排的普遍选择。我认为,\"搭便车\"或经济人理性行为是合乎公理的经济学假设,但\"搭便车\"问题并不一定非由政府强制来解决不可。从理论上说,公共品的供给存在政府效率解,但政府效率解有严格的约束条件,公共品供给中的政府职能与政府失灵也都是相对于其效率条件以及满足这些条件的程度而言的。     

Epsilon Cores of Games with Limited Side Payments: Nonemptiness and Equal Treatment

We introduce the concept of a parameterized collection of games with limited side payments, ruling out large transfers of utility, and demonstrate conditions ensuring that a game with limited side payments has a nonempty -core. Our main result is that, when some degree of side-paymentness within nearly-effective small groups is assumed and large transfers are prohibited, then all payoffs in the -core treat similar players similarly. A bound on the distance between -core payoffs of any two similar players is given in terms of the parameters describing the game. These results add to the literature showing that games with many players and small effective groups have the properties of competitive markets. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C71, C78, D71.