A cost sharing example in which subsidies are necessary for stability

C-Tier
Journal: Economics Letters
Year: 2019
Volume: 185
Issue: C

Score contribution per author:

0.503 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 0.5x C-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Suppose that agents, who have demands for some goods, cooperate to produce their joint demands. If the technology for the production of these goods improves as the set of cooperating agents grows, we have a justification for subsidies when an agent has such an efficient technology that he is able to generate savings for the group. While it was known that there may exist some stable allocations with subsidies (i.e, negatives cost shares), our contribution is to show that subsidies could in some cases be indispensable for stability. The key for this result to hold is the presence of decreasing returns to scale, which can put many agents in competition for an efficient technology.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:ecolet:v:185:y:2019:i:c:s0165176519303490
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-24