Public-Good Provision with Many Participants.

For a nonexcludable public good with benefit and cost functions independent of the number of participants, this paper studies second-best allocations under Bayesian interim incentive compatibility and interim individual rationality. As the number of participants becomes large, second-best provision...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Review of Economic Studies Vol. 70; no. 3; pp. 589 - 615
Autor principal: Hellwig, Martin F.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Oxford University Press / UK July 2003
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:For a nonexcludable public good with benefit and cost functions independent of the number of participants, this paper studies second-best allocations under Bayesian interim incentive compatibility and interim individual rationality. As the number of participants becomes large, second-best provision levels converge in distribution to first-best levels if the latter are bounded. Second-best provision levels become large in absolute terms but small relative to first-best levels if benefit and cost functions are isoelastic. In contrast, for an excludable public good, the ratio of second-best to first-best levels is bounded away from zero. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.