Public goods with ambiguity in large economies

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Economic Theory
Year: 2019
Volume: 182
Issue: C
Pages: 218-246

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

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

Abstract

We consider a canonical problem in economics: the financing and provision of a public good. Mailath and Postlewaite (1990) show that under natural information and enforcement frictions, the probability of providing the public good falls to zero as the population size goes to infinity even if provision of the public good is efficient. In this paper, we allow agents to have multiple prior beliefs about others' valuations and to make choices that reflect their aversion to that ambiguity. We show that, as long as each agent's set of priors contains some distribution of valuations under which provision is inefficient, it is possible to find a mechanism in large economies that finances provision of the public good.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jetheo:v:182:y:2019:i:c:p:218-246
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25