Clubs,local public goods and transportation models: A synthesis

Clubs, local public goods, and transportation models are analyzed within a unified model. The emphasis is on the derivation of optimal allocation, pricing and the size of the sharing group. We derive the conditions under which optimal prices will yield surplus or deficit, as well as those under which competitive provision will be efficient. Given heterogeneous tastes we prove that segregation according to tastes is generally efficient although several cases where this result does not hold are also discussed. We show that the existing literature is unnecessarily restrictive and that the unified approach suggested here considerably extends the existing analysis of clubs' local public goods and the transportation problems.