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The Important Thing Is not (Always) Winning but Taking Part: Funding Public Goods with Contests

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Author Info
Marco Faravelli () (Department of Economics, University of Milan-Bicocca and Edinburgh School of Economics)
Abstract

This paper considers a public good game with incomplete information a?ected by extreme free-riding. We overcome this problem through the implementation of a contest in which several prizes can be awarded. For any possible distribution of wealth we identify the necessary and su?cient conditions for the equilibrium allocations to be interior for all players. At interior solutions, it is optimal for the social planner to set the last prize equal to zero, but otherwise the total expected welfare is independent of the distribution of the total prize sum among the prizes. We prove that private provision via a contest Pareto-dominates both public provision and private provision via a lottery.

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File URL: http://dipeco.economia.unimib.it/repec/pdf/mibwpaper102.pdf
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File Function: First version, 2006
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 102.

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Length: 22 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2006
Date of revision: Nov 2006
Handle: RePEc:mib:wpaper:102

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  1. Edward P. Lazear & Sherwin Rosen, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," NBER Working Papers 0401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Baye, M.R. & Kovenock, D. & De Vries, C., 1992. "The All-Pay Auction with Complete Information," Papers 8-92-1, Pennsylvania State - Department of Economics.
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  3. Henrik Orzen, 2005. "Fundraising through Competition: Evidence from the Lab," Discussion Papers 2005-04, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Richard L. Fullerton & R. Preston McAfee, 1999. "Auctioning Entry into Tournaments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 573-605, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Morgan, John & Sefton, Martin, 2000. "Funding Public Goods with Lotteries: Experimental Evidence," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 67(4), pages 785-810, October.
  6. Taylor, Curtis R, 1995. "Digging for Golden Carrots: An Analysis of Research Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 872-90, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Arye L. Hillman & John G. Riley, 1987. "Politically Contestable Rents and Transfers," UCLA Economics Working Papers 452, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  8. Morgan, John, 2000. "Financing Public Goods by Means of Lotteries," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 67(4), pages 761-84, October.
  9. Andreoni, James, 1988. "Privately provided public goods in a large economy: The limits of altruism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 57-73, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Theodore Groves & John Ledyard, 1976. "Optimal Allocation of Public Goods: A Solution to the 'Free Rider Problem'," Discussion Papers 144, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Ellingsen, Tore, 1991. "Strategic Buyers and the Social Cost of Monopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 648-57, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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