Author

Marc Bilodeau

Date of Award

1990

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Abstract

When individuals provide noncooperatively many public goods, not only are contribution levels generally too low, but the composition of the contributions is also generally inefficient. Efficiency gains may then be obtained through institutions that constrain individuals' choices, either by increasing contribution levels and/or by improving the public goods mix.;A model of noncooperative public goods provision is set up in chapter 1. The presence of many public goods presents an additional difficulty because the theory of demand under rationing (instead of standard consumer theory) is needed to derive individuals' contribution functions. The impact of various institutions on individuals' choice sets is shown and a taxonomy is proposed.;In chapter 2, a United Fund is added as an autonomous player that collects charitable contributions and redistributes them to various charities. Necessary and sufficient conditions for contributing to the United Fund to be a Subgame Perfect Equilibrium strategy are found. It is also shown that contributions to a United Fund would likely be smaller than direct contributions to charities would have been, raising a mix-level dilemma for the Funds' administrators.;In chapter 3, a tax-earmarking scheme, where individuals must pay some tax but may earmark it to the provision of any public good, is analysed. It is shown that when there are only two public goods, the tax-earmarking outcome is particularly attractive since it is always unique, constrained pareto-efficient, and in the constrained core.;In chapter 4, subsidy schemes for private provision of public goods are analysed. It is shown that Lindahl equilibria are the only efficient allocations that may be supported as Nash equilibria where everyone contributes positively and that a uniform subsidy rate would generally be inefficient.

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