International best-shot public goods and foreign aid

This note corrects an analytical mistake of Jayaraman and Kanbur (1999) in their analysis of a Stackelberg game of the voluntary contribution to an international best-shot public good by a donor and a recipient. It shows that, depending on players' preferences, the donor may choose not to contribute but make a positive direct income transfer to the recipient who will then contribute to the best-shot public good.best-shot public goods

Threshold levels and the realization of a group benefit

This paper considers a voluntary contribution threshold game in which a group benefit is realized only if the number of contributors at least reaches a threshold level, and analyzes the effect of the threshold level on the likelihood that the group benefit is realized. Changes in the threshold level in interior symmetric equilibrium have two effects on the likelihood, the direct, threshold effect and the indirect, strategic effect. While the direct effect is always negative, the indirect effect can be either positive or negative. And the net effect is not necessarily negative.direct effect

Quality over-provision of information goods

This paper studies a producer's quality choice of an information good. The marginal cost of quality provision for the good is decreasing. The buyer does not observe the actual quality but can learn a signal which is the sum of quality and a noise. It shows that the producer has an incentive to over-supply quality. Moreover, and interestly, all types of producer may over-supply quality.Information goods

The effect of the status quo tie-breaking rule on prize winning

This paper considers a contest in which two identical players participate to compete for an indivisible prize. It is shown that, in the presence of incomplete information, the player favored by the status quo tie-breaking rule may be less likely to get the prize than his competitor, even though, under the coin toss tie-breaking rule, the two players participate with the same positive probability and hence are equally likely to get the prize.