For excludable public goods, we propose simple mechanisms to uniquely implement a (core) stable and efficient production and cost-sharing outcome: consumers are asked to announce sequentially their minimal requested level of public good and a subscription towards its production. In one mechanism the subscriptions depend on the order of moves. In a second mechanism, the subscriptions are order-i...

Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) can address environmental externalities when mandatory regulations are unattainable or undesirable. The extent to which VEPs succeed at improving environmental quality depends on participation levels from firms and consumers. We examine the factors that lead to a successful VEP by studying participation levels in residential green electricity programs. Am...

Empirical evidence is provided for the importance of pro-social behavior of individuals in an anonymous, n-person public good setting. A unique panel data set of 136,000 observations is matched with an extensive survey. Even under anonymous conditions, a large number of individuals are prepared to donate quite a significant sum of money. Cooperation conditional on giving by specific other perso...

Most professional economists believe that economist in general are more selfish than other persons and that this greater selfishness is due to economic education. In this paper we offer empirical evidence against this widely held belief. Using a unique data set about giving behaviour to two social funds at the University of Zurich, it is shown that economic training does not make people act mor...

Applying a willingness to pay approach known from contingent valuation in environmental economics, we develop an ordinally based measure for the size of individual sacrifice that is connected with an agent's contribution to a public good. We construct a selection mechanism that picks the unique efficient solution among all allocations that have an equal sacrifice as defined in this way. We show...

I present a tractable dynamic model of political economy where disagreements about the composition of public spending result in implementation of short-sighted policies. The relative price of investment to consumption is excessively large in equilibrium due to over-taxation. Investment rates are too low which slows down growth along the transition. In the long run, this results in output, consu...

A number of experimental studies have shown that the opportunity to punish anti-social behavior increases cooperation levels when agents face a social dilemma. Using a public good experiment, I show that in the presence of counter-punishment opportunities cooperators are less willing to punish free riders. As a result, cooperation breaks down and groups have lower earnings in comparison to a tr...

In this paper we study learning and cooperation in repeated prisoners’ dilemmas experiments. We compare interaction neighbourhoods of different size and structure, we observe choices under different information conditions, and we estimate parameters of a learning model. We find that naive imitation, although a driving force in many models of spatial evolution, may be negligible in the experimen...

We develop a two-region model where the decentralized provision of spillover goods can be financed by means of taxes or user fees. In order to enforce the fees regions have to invest in exclusion. We show that a decentralized solution tends to be inefficient. There will be over-investment in exclusion and an underprovision of the spillover goods compared to a centralized solution. In addition t...

This paper considers incentives to provide goods that are non-excludable along social or geographic links. We find, first, that networks can lead to specialization in public good provision. In every social network there is an equilibrium where some individuals contribute and others free-ride. In many networks, this extreme is the only outcome. Second, specialization can benefit society as a who...