Efficiency with Non-Convexities: Extending the “Scandinavian Consensus” Approaches

There are two distinct “Scandinavian consensus” approaches to public good supply, both based on agents' willingness to pay. A Wicksell–Foley public competitive equilibrium arises from a negative consensus in which no change of public environment, together with associated taxes and subsidies which finance it, will be unanimously approved. Alternatively, in a Lindahl or valuation equilibrium, charges for the public environment induce a positive consensus. To allow general non-convexities to be regarded as aspects of the public environment, we extend recent generalizations of these equilibrium notions and prove counterparts to both the usual fundamental efficiency theorems of welfare economics.     

Free Riding and Consistent Conjectures in the Provision of Public Goods: An Experimental Study

The aim of this paper is to examine free riding and consistent conjectures in the provision of public goods. In this research, a Lindahl optimum is never reached. The prediction that public goods will inevitably be under-supplied is proven. With repetition, the subjects' contributions move toward the free riding level instead of the Lindahl optimum. However, a surprising observation is that the public goods provided sometimes increase with time. Economists and males behave more selfishly than other people. Most people expect matching behaviour, and most of them do behave accordingly. The extent to which people will match is overestimated, therefore expectations about the amount of public goods and the amount of actually provided public goods will be revised accordingly and tend to decline over time.     

Edgeworth and Lindahl–Foley equilibria of a General Equilibrium Model with Private Provision of Pure Public Goods

In this paper, we propose a definition of Edgeworth equilibrium for a private ownership production economy with (possibly infinitely) many private goods and a finite number of pure public goods. We show that Edgeworth equilibria exist whatever be the dimension of the private goods space and can be decentralized, in the finite and infinite dimensional cases, as Lindahl–Foley equilibria. Existence theorems for Lindahl–Foley equilibria are a by‐product of our results.     

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     

Retailing public goods: The economics of corporate social responsibility

This paper explores the feasibility and desirability of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We identify CSR with creation of public goods or curtailment of public bads. Using a model with profit-maximizing firms, the paper shows that there is a direct parallel between CSR and traditional models of private provision of public goods. Indeed, firms that use CSR will produce public goods at exactly the same level as predicted by the standard voluntary contribution equilibrium for public goods. We compare CSR with government provision and charitable provision, discussing when CSR by private for-profit firms could have a comparative advantage in dealing with public goods provision.     

A graphic representation of the Nash and Lindahl equilibria in an economy with a public good

In an economy with a public good the noncooperative Nash equilibrium and the cooperative Lindahl equilibrium are represented graphically. The Nash equilibrium is shown to be non-optimal, while the Lindahl equilibrium is shown to be optimal. Simple stability analyses are undertaken. Finally, the two equilibria are compared. It appears that more public good will be allocated in the Lindahl than in the Nash equilibrium, and that in a sufficiently large economy a transition from a Nash to a Lindahl equilibrium will be advantageous for everyone.     

Public provision of private child goods

This paper analyzes the public provision of private goods for children in a politico-economic model with endogenous fertility. The government provides every child with goods that can also be purchased by parents in private markets, and the level of provision is determined by majority rule. Households with many children benefit from the public provision more than those with fewer children; thus, a political conflict arises between them. The distribution of the number of children across households, which is a crucial factor for determining which group is politically dominant, is endogenously determined by households' fertility decision. The sequential interaction between fertility and political decisions might lead to multiple equilibria: equilibrium with high fertility and low-private/public-spending ratio and equilibrium with low fertility and high-private/public-spending ratio. Our model could explain the large differences in fertility and structure of child-related spending across countries.     

The Asymptotic Voluntary Provision of the Pure Public Goods

This paper analyzes the voluntary provision of the pure public good in a sequence of finite economies. The boundedness of this provision is established under very weak conditions. The Cournot–Nash provision of the public good is bounded. In contrast, the Lindahl provision is unbounded but the proportion of private good devoted to its production may be infinitesimal. Several examples are provided to relate this paper to the literature.     

Equivalence of Lindahl equilibrium with participation prices and the core

Summary In a model of an economy with multiple public goods and differentiated crowding, it is shown that asymptotically the core has the equal treatment property and coincides with the equilibrium outcomes. It follows that all individuals of the same type in the same jurisdiction must pay the same Lindahl taxes and, with strict convexity of preferences, the same Lindahl prices. With only one private good, for sufficiently large economies we show (a) the equivalence of the core and the set of equilibrium outcomes and (b) the nonemptiness of approximate cores and their equivalence to the set of approximate equilibrium outcomes.The author is indebted to Vicky Barham, John Conley, Hideo Konishi, Julian Manning and Roma Jakiwczyk for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The author gratefully acknowledges the research support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.     

On the Private Provision of Two or More Public Goods

We extend the simple model of voluntary public good provision to allow for two or more public goods, and explore the new possibilities that arise in this setting. We show that, when there are many public goods, voluntary contribution equilibrium typically generates, not only too low a level of public good provision, but also the wrong mix of public goods. We also analyze the neutrality property in the more general setting, and extend a neutrality proposition of Bergstrom, Blume, and Varian (1986) .     

Equilibrium among local jurisdictions: toward an integrated treatment of voting and residential choice

In models of local public goods with mobile consumers, existence of equilibrium is problematic. Difficulties with existence of equilibrium that arise in models with discrete locations and in models with voting are compounded when both features are introduced into the same model. We present conditions under which equilibrium exists in a model where freely mobile households choose community of residence and amount of housing consumption, and vote on the level of public goods provision. These conditions involve restrictions on preferences and the technology of public goods supply. At least some of these conditions appear consistent with empirical observations. We discuss the implications of the conditions, and their role in assuring existence of equilibrium. A series of computational examples provide illustrations of the way these conditions interact, and the difficulties that must be confronted if they are to be relaxed.     

Voluntariness and efficiency in the provision of public goods

This paper presents a characterization of Lindahl allocations which makes no reference to personalized prices. Lindahl equilibria are characterized here by two conditions: Pareto efficiency and a voluntariness condition. Voluntariness requires that no consumer may benefit from a reduction in his contribution if this means that the vector of public goods must be reduced in the same proportion. The intersection of the (large) set of voluntary allocations and that of efficient ones turns out to be (under differentiability) the set of Lindahl allocations.     

A STABLE NASH MECHANISM FOR QUASI-ADDITIVE PUBLIC-GOOD ENVIRONMENTS*

In this paper we present a simple game form implementing Lindahl allocations as Nash equilibrium outcomes, which has nice stability properties. we show that if the preferences of eaach consumer are representable by a utility function of the form a(y)x_i+b_i(y), where x_i(y), where x_i is the amount of private good and y, the amount of public good, then the Nash equilibrium of our geme is locally stable under the gradient adjustment process. This restriction on the preferences has been known in hte literature as the necessary and sufficient condition for the Pareto optimal amount of pukic goods to be independent of the private goods distribution. This type of preference includes quasi-linear preferences as a special case. but unlike quasi-linearity, this allows a non zero income effect of demand for public goods as well as private goods, which is often supported by empirical evidence. Our result shows how an equilbirium can be achieved over time by a decentralized strategy adjustement process for a fairly general class of environments, even in the absence of a dominant-strategy equilibrium.     

Religion,administration & public goods: Experimental evidence from Russia

In this paper, I argue that religion matters for the provision of public goods. I identify three normative foundations of Eastern Orthodox monasticism with strong economic implications: 1. solidarity, 2. obedience, and 3. universal discipline. I propose a public goods game with a three-tier hierarchy, where these norms are modeled as treatments. Obedience and universal discipline facilitate the provision of threshold public goods in equilibrium, whereas solidarity does not. Empirical evidence is drawn from public goods experiments run with regional bureaucrats in Tomsk and Novosibirsk, Russia. The introduction of the same three norms as experimental treatments produces different results. I find that only universal discipline leads to the provision of threshold public goods, whereas solidarity and obedience do not. Unlike in Protestant societies, in Eastern Orthodox societies free-riding occurs at lower than at higher hierarchical levels. Successful economic reforms in Eastern Orthodox countries start with the restructuring of the middle- and lower-ranked public sector. Authoritarian persistence is defined by the commitment of the dictator to overprovide public goods.     

A competitive equilibrium for a warm-glow economy

The warm-glow model (Andreoni in J Political Econ 97:1447–1458, 1989; Econ J 100:464–477, 1990) of public goods provision has received widespread interest, yet surprisingly most attention has focused on the voluntary contribution equilibrium of the model, and only very little attention has been devoted to the competitive equilibrium. In this paper, we introduce the concept of competitive equilibrium for a warm-glow economy (henceforth, warm-glow equilibrium) and establish both existence and welfare properties. The warm-glow equilibrium concept may prove to be very useful to the normative and positive theory of public goods provision. First, it is a price-based mechanism achieving efficient outcomes. Second, not only could the warm-glow equilibria outcomes serve as a point of reference to measure free-riding and welfare loss but also, as suggested by Bernheim and Rangel (Behavioral Economics and Its Applications, 2007), in large economies they may be approximated by Walrasian equilibria outcomes.     

On Nash-Implementation in the Presence of Withholding

In this paper we construct a completely feasible and continuous mechanism whose Nash allocations coincide with Lindahl allocations when both preferences and initial endowments are unknown to the designer and unreported endowments are withheld. This mechanism extends the mechanism of Hong by allowing for semi-positivity of endowments for private goods economies and the mechanism of Tian by allowing for any number of private goods for public goods economies. Thus our mechanism improves all the existing mechanisms that implement Walrasian or Lindahl allocations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D6l, D78, H41.     

Trade Gains and Public Goods

This paper proves that in a multicountry general‐equilibrium model of international trade with local public goods, free trade is beneficial if the governments in the trading world behave strategically with respect to the provision of public goods.     

Coalitional instability of the distributive Lindahl equilibrium

Summary Bergstrom [3] has showed that the Lindahlian approach to the analysis of public goods may also be used to analyze a model of wide-spread externalities in which agents have preferences defined on allocations rather than on individual commodity bundles. He has provided versions of the first and second welfare theorem for adistributive Lindahl equilibrium and also presented sufficient conditions for its existence. However, we shall show that, in contrast to Foley's [4] result on the core stability of a Lindahl equilibrium, a distributive Lindahl equilibrium need not satisfy coalitional stability. We will provide a robust example in which the unique, distributive Lindahl equilibrium does not belong to the -core defined either as in Scarf [11] or as in Yannelis [12].I would like to thank F. Canova, R. Serrano, M. Spagat, R. Vohra at Brown University, P. C. Padoan at University of Rome and an anonymous referee for their comments. I am also grateful to the participants at the Third Annual MeetingColloquia on Economic Research at I.G.I.E.R. in Milan, Italy, and to the participants at the Citibank Workshop in Economic Theory at Brown University.     

Bargaining over Public Goods

In a simple public good economy, we propose a natural bargaining procedure, the equilibria of which converge to Lindahl allocations as the cost of bargaining vanishes. The procedure splits the decision over the allocation in a decision about personalized prices and a decision about output levels for the public good. Since this procedure does not assume price-taking behavior, it provides a strategic foundation for the personalized taxes inherent in the Lindahl solution to the public goods problem.     

Feminist economics as a Postmodern Moment

Wicksell saw economics as a way to effect social change. In addition to academic writings, he produced a steady stream of pamphlets, newspaper editorials, and public lectures that brought theoretical economics to bear on social policy. In this paper, consideration is given to this wider variety of Wicksell's writings, and his unanimity rule for public goods decision making is examined within the context of his social philosophy. We argue that the unanimity rule, rather than being narrowly focused on efficiency concerns, operated as a practical mechanism to achieve Wicksell's larger goal of social justice. This stands in contrast to the interpretation of Wicksell commonly presented in the public choice literature.