The folk theorem characterizes the (subgame perfect) Nash equilibrium payoffs of an undiscounted or discounted infinitely repeated game - with fully informed, patient players - as the feasible individually rational payoffs of the one-shot game. To which extent does the result still hold when...

A demand for behavioral norms arises when members of a group have individual incentives to take actions that reduce the group's overall welfare (James S. Coleman, 1990). Norms require enforcement with a system of sanctions that penalize deviations from acceptable behavior (George C. Homans,...

Experimental studies of social dilemmas have shown that while the existence of a sanctioning institution improves cooperation within groups, it also has a detrimental impact on group earnings in the short-run. Could the introduction of pre-play threats to punish have enough of a beneficial...

We develop an economic model of association based on voluntary contributions. Different equilibria corresponding to the different modes of formation of associations are analyzed and the results are compared with existing empirical literature. The main contribution consists in formalizing the...

We run a series of experiments in which subjects have to choose their level of contribution to a pure public good. Our design differs from the standard public good game with respect to the decision procedure. Instead of deciding simultaneously in each round, subjects are randomly ordered in a...

In this paper we study the relationship between the relative size of the U.S. nonprofit sector and population heterogeneity, at the county level, by adopting and extending the model of Alesina, Baquir and Easterly (1999). The relative size of the voluntary sector is assessed as a share of...

We develop an economic model of association based on voluntary contributions. Different equilibria corresponding to the different modes of formation of associations are analyzed and the results are compared with the existing empirical literature. The main contribution consists in analyzing...

We study the construction of a social ordering function for the case of a public good financed by contributions from the population, and we extend the analysis of Maniquet and Sprumont (2004) to the case when contributions cannot be negative, i.e. agents cannot receive subsidies from the others.

We present the results of an experiment that explores the sanctioning behavior of individuals who experience a social dilemma. In the game we study, players choose contribution levels to a public good and subsequently have multiple opportunities to reduce the earnings of the other members of the...

The purpose of this article is to provide an economic analysis of the relationship between economic integration and political fragmentation. This follows previous contributions from Alesina et al (2000), Casella (2001, Casella and Feinstein (2002), or Leite-Monteiro and Sato (2003). We go a step...