On Efficient Jurisdiction Structures in a Simple Local Public Goods Economy with Interjurisdictional Trade

This note shows that if commodities are tradable across jurisdictions, then it may be efficient to have heterogeneously sized jurisdictions, even if (i) consumers are identical, (ii) there is one private good and one public good, (iii) utility and production functions are not affected by population (within the relevant range of sizes of jurisdictions).

Migration-proof Tiebout equilibrium:Existence and asymptotic efficiency

Tiebout's basic claim was that when public goods are local, competition between jurisdictions solves the free riding problem in the sense that equilibria exist and are always Pareto efficient. Unfortunately, the literature does not quite support this conjecture. For finite economies, one must choose between notions of Tiebout equilibrium which are Pareto optimal but which may be empty, or which are nonempty but may be inefficient. This paper introduces a new equilibrium notion called "migration-proof Tiebout equilibrium" which we argue is a natural refinement of Nash equilibrium for a multijurisdictional environment. We show for sufficiently large economies with homogeneous consumers, such an equilibrium always exists, is unique, and is asymptotically Pareto efficient!Local Public Goods

Free Trade Networks

The paper examines the formation of free trade agreements (FTAs) as a network formation game. We consider a general n-country model in which countries trade differentiated industrial commodities as well as a numeraire good. Countries may be different in the size of the industrial good industry (measure of firms) and the market size (population size). Their incentives to sign an FTA depend on these characteristics of their own countries and those of their partner countries. We show that if all countries are symmetric, a complete global free trade network is pairwise stable and it is the unique stable network if industrial commodities are not highly substitutable. We also compare FTAs and customs unions (CUs) as to which of these two regimes facilitate global trade liberalization, emphasizing the fact that unlike in the case of a CU, each country signing an FTA can have a new FTA with an outside country without consent of other member countries.Free trade agreement, Customs union, Global free trade, Theory of network, Pairwise stability

Contributing or Free-Riding? Voluntary Participation in a Public Good Economy

We consider a (pure) public goods provision problem with voluntary participation in a quasi-linear economy. We propose a new hybrid solution concept, the free-riding-proof core (FRP-Core), which endogenously determines a contribution group, public good provision level, and its cost-sharing. The FRP-Core is always nonempty in public good economies but does not usually achieve global efficiency. The FRP-Core has support from both cooperative and noncooperative games. In particular, it is equivalent to the set of perfectly coalition-proof Nash equilibrium (Bernheim, Peleg, and Whinston, 1987) of a dynamic game with players' participation decisions followed by a common agency game of public goods provision. We illustrate various properties of the FRPCore with an example. We also show that the equilibrium level of public good shrinks to zero as the economy is replicated.endogenous coalition formation, externalities, public good, perfectly coalition-proof Nash equilibrium, free-riders, free-riding-proof core, lobbying, common agency game

Contributing or Free-Riding? A Theory of Endogenous Lobby Formation

We consider a two-stage public goods provision game: In the first stage, players simultaneously decide if they will join a contribution group or not. In the second stage, players in the contribution group simultaneously offer contribution schemes in order to influence the government’s choice on the level of provision of public goods. Using perfectly coalition-proof Nash equilibrium (Bernheim, Peleg and Whinston, 1987 JET), we show that the set of equilibrium outcomes is equivalent to an "intuitive" hybrid solution concept, the free-riding-proof core, which is always nonempty but does not necessarily achieve global efficiency. It is not necessarily true that an equilibrium lobby group is formed by the players with highest willingness-to-pay, nor is it a consecutive group with respect to their willingnesses-to-pay. We also show that the equilibrium level of public goods provision shrinks to zero as the economy is replicated.Common Agency, Public Good, Free Rider, Core, Lobby, Coalition Formation, Coalition-proof Nash Equilibrium

Salience: Agenda Choices by Competing Candidates

Which issues are discussed by candidates in an election campaign? Why are some issues never discussed? Model tractability is lost quickly when dealing with these questions, partly because of the multidimensional voting inherent in models of multiple issues. Our model features two candidates for office who can talk about any subset of issues, allowing uncertainty both on the part of voters and candidates, and taking candidates to be office motivated. Candidates move first and simultaneously, announcing any positions they choose on any issues. To us, salience is simply the discussion of an issue in a campaign. If both candidates and voters are expected utility maximizers, we find salience results, in that candidates typically want to talk about everything (or they are indifferent between talking and nonsalience). Leaving the expected utility framework, we present an example using “Knightian uncertainty” or “maxmin expected utility with multiple priors” of Gilboa-Schmeidler to illustrate how robust nonsalience and salience of issues might be generated.Salience, Candidate Competition, Elections, Knightian Uncertainty, Non-Expected Utility Theory, Maxmin Expected Utility with Multiple Priors, Gilboa-Schmeidler, Ambiguity Aversion

Contributing or free-riding? Voluntary participation in a public good economy

We consider a (pure) public goods provision problem with voluntary participation in a quasi-linear economy. We propose a new hybrid solution concept, the free-riding-proof core (FRP-Core), which endogenously determines a contribution group, public goods provision level, and how to share the provision costs. The FRP-Core is always nonempty in public goods economies but does not usually achieve global efficiency. The FRP-Core has support from both cooperative and noncooperative games. In particular, it is equivalent to the set of perfectly coalition-proof Nash equilibria (Bernheim, Peleg, and Whinston, 1987) of a dynamic game with players' participation decisions followed by a common agency game of public goods provision. We illustrate various properties of the FRP-Core with an example. We also show that the equilibrium level of public goods shrinks to zero as the economy is replicated.Endogenous coalition formation, externalities, public good, perfectly coalition-proof Nash equilibrium, free riders, free-riding-proof core, lobbying, common agency game

Credible Group Stability in Many-to-Many Matching Problems

It is known that in two-sided many-to-many matching problems, pairwise stable matchings may not be immune to group deviations, unlike in many- to-one matching problems (Blair 1988). In this paper, we show that pairwise stability is equivalent to credible group stability when one side has responsive preferences and the other side has categorywise- responsive preferences. A credibly group-stable matching is immune to any “executable” group deviations with an appropriate definition of executability. Under the same preference restriction, we also show the equivalence between the set of pairwise-stable matchings and the set of matchings generated by coalition-proof Nash equilibria of an appropriately defined strategic-form game.

Credible Group Stability in Multi-Partner Matching Problems

It is known that in two-sided many-to-many matching markets, pair-wise stability is not logically related with the (weak) core, unlike in many-to-one matching markets (Blair, 1988). In this paper, we seek a theoretical foundation for pairwise stability when group deviations are allowed. Group deviations are defined in graphs on the set of agents. We introduce executable group deviations in order to discuss the credibility of group deviations and to defined credibly group stable matchings. We show, under responsive preferences, that credible group stability is equivalent to pairwise stability in the multi-partner matching problem that includes two-sided matching problems as special cases. Under the same preference restriction, we also show the equivalence between the set of pairwise stable matchings and the set of matchings generated by coalition-proof Nash equilibria of an appropriately defined strategic form game. However, under a weaker preference restriction, substitutability, these equivalences no longer hold, since pairwise stable matchings may be strictly Pareto-ordered, unlike under responsiveness.Multi-partner matching problem, Pairwise stable matching network, Credible group deviation