Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

3-2021

Abstract

This paper characterizes mechanisms satisfying incentive compatibility and individual rationality in the classical public good provision problem. Many papers in the literature obtain the results in the so-called standard model of ex ante identical agents with a continuous, closed interval of types. The main contribution of this paper is the characterization of the budget-surplus maximizing mechanism satisfying incentive compatibility and individual rationality (Theorem 1 for Bayesian implementation and Theorem 3 for dominant strategy implementation) that applies to a finite discretization over the standard model. Making use of the proposed budget-surplus maximizing mechanisms, we show that some known results do not need the agents’ risk neutrality, whereas some others do rely on the agents’ risk neutrality in a subtle manner. Furthermore, we improve upon some known results and obtain new results which do not exist in the standard model.

Keywords

Budget balance, decision efficiency, incentive compatibility, individual rationality; mechanisms; public goods

Discipline

Economic Theory | Public Economics

Research Areas

Economic Theory

Publication

Social Choice and Welfare

Volume

57

First Page

431

Last Page

468

ISSN

0176-1714

Identifier

10.1007/s00355-021-01329-8

Publisher

Springer

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-021-01329-8

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