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Using Tontines to Finance Public Goods: Back to the Future?

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Author Info
Andreas Lange
John A. List
Michael K. Price

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Abstract

The tontine, which is an interesting mixture of group annuity, group life insurance, and lottery, has a peculiar place in economic history. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it played a major role in raising funds to finance public goods in Europe, but today it is rarely encountered outside of murder mysteries. This study provides a formal model of individual contribution decisions under a tontine mechanism. We analyze the performance of tontines and compare them to another popular fundraising scheme used today by both government and charitable fundraisers: lotteries. Our major theoretical results are that (i) the optimal tontine for agents with identical valuations of the public good consists of all agents receiving a fixed "prize" amount in the first period equal to a percentage of their total contribution, (ii) contribution levels in the optimal tontine are identical to those of risk-neutral agents in an equivalently valued single prize lottery, (iii) contribution levels for the optimal tontine are independent of risk-aversion, and thereby outperform lotteries when agents are risk-averse, (iv) if agents are sufficiently asymmetric in their valuation of the public good, equilibrium contribution levels are larger under tontines than any lottery. In particular, one can obtain full participation in the tontine mechanism compared to only partial participation in a lottery. These insights highlight that the tontine institution can be a useful tool for fundraisers in the future.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10958.

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Date of creation: Dec 2004
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10958

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H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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  1. Groves, Theodore & Ledyard, John O, 1977. "Optimal Allocation of Public Goods: A Solution to the "Free Rider" Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(4), pages 783-809, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Weir, David R., 1989. "Tontines, Public Finance, and Revolution in France and England, 1688?1789," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(01), pages 95-124, March. [Downloadable!]
  3. Varian, Hal R., 1994. "Sequential contributions to public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 165-186, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Andreoni, James & Bergstrom, Ted, 1996. " Do Government Subsidies Increase the Private Supply of Public Goods?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 88(3-4), pages 295-308, September.
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  5. Walker, Mark, 1981. "A Simple Incentive Compatible Scheme for Attaining Lindahl Allocations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(1), pages 65-71, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Andreas Lange & John A. List & Michael K. Price, 2007. "Using Lotteries To Finance Public Goods: Theory And Experimental Evidence," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(3), pages 901-927, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-77, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Gary E. Bolton & Axel Ockenfels, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Jacob K. Goeree & Emiel Maasland & Sander Onderstal & John L. Turner, 2005. "How (Not) to Raise Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(4), pages 897-926, August.
  10. Bagnoli, Mark & McKee, Michael, 1991. "Voluntary Contribution Games: Efficient Private Provision of Public Goods," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(2), pages 351-66, April.
  11. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory Of Fairness, Competition, And Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Morgan, John, 2000. "Financing Public Goods by Means of Lotteries," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 67(4), pages 761-84, October.
  13. Sugden, Robert, 1984. "Reciprocity: The Supply of Public Goods through Voluntary Contributions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376), pages 772-87, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Sugden, Robert, 1982. "On the Economics of Philanthropy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(366), pages 341-50, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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