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Equilibrium Participation in Public Goods Allocations

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Abstract

An alternative notion of individual rationality for mechanism design is studied in which mechanisms suggest public goods allocations and individuals then choose whether or not to submit their requested transfer to the central planner. The set of allocations such that unanimous participation is a Nash equilibrium is shown to be sub-optimal in a wide variety of environments and shrinks to the endowment as the economy is replicated. Therefore, any non-trivial mechanism suffers from non-participation in the selected outcome when agents cannot be coerced to contribute.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Healy, 2005. "Equilibrium Participation in Public Goods Allocations," GSIA Working Papers 2006-E7, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:cmu:gsiawp:379933039
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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.
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    8. Matthew O. Jackson & Thomas R. Palfrey, 1998. "Efficiency and Voluntary Implementation in Markets with Repeated Pairwise Bargaining," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(6), pages 1353-1388, November.
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    13. Groves, Theodore, 1973. "Incentives in Teams," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 617-631, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Hideo Konishi & Ryusuke Shinohara, 2014. "Voluntary Participation and Provision of Public Goods in Large Finite Economies," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(2), pages 173-195, April.
    2. Furusawa, Taiji & ,, 2011. "Contributing or free-riding? Voluntary participation in a public good economy," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 6(2), May.
    3. Noriaki Matsushima & Ryusuke Shinohara, 2015. "The efficiency of monopolistic provision of public goods through simultaneous bilateral bargaining," ISER Discussion Paper 0948, Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka.
    4. Ryusuke Shinohara, 2014. "Participation and demand levels for a joint project," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(4), pages 925-952, December.
    5. Grüner, Hans Peter & Koriyama, Yukio, 2012. "Public goods, participation constraints, and democracy: A possibility theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 152-167.
    6. Wolfgang Buchholz & Richard Cornes & Dirk Rübbelke, 2020. "Matching in the Kolm triangle: interiority and participation constraints of matching equilibria," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 47(5), pages 1039-1050, April.
    7. Takuma Wakayama & Takehiko Yamato, 2023. "Comparison of the voluntary contribution and Pareto-efficient mechanisms under voluntary participation," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(2), pages 517-553, June.
    8. Grüner, Hans Peter, 2008. "Public goods, participation constraints, and democracy: A possibility theorem," CEPR Discussion Papers 7066, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Noriaki Matsushima & Ryusuke Shinohara, 2012. "Private Provision of Public Goods that are Complements for Private Goods: Application to Open Source Software Developments," ISER Discussion Paper 0830, Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka.
    10. Yukihiro Nishimura & Ryusuke Shinohara, 2013. "A voluntary participation game through a unit-by-unit cost share mechanism of a non-excludable public good," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(3), pages 793-814, March.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C62 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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