We study the provision of public goods when all agents have complete information and can write binding agreements. This framework is in deliberate contrast to a traditional view of the free‐rider problem based on hidden information or voluntary provision. We focus on coalition formation as a potential source of inefficiency. To this end, we develop a notion of an equilibrium coalition structure, based on the assumption that each coalition that forms does so under a rational prediction of the society‐wide coalition structure. In a simple model, we characterize the (unique) equilibrium coalition structure. Only in some cases does the equilibrium involve full cooperation, resulting in efficient provision of the public good. In other cases, the equilibrium consists of several coalitions and inefficient provision. However, the degree of inefficiency and the number of possible coalitions are bounded.

This paper studies endogenous risk-taking by embedding a concern for status (relative consumption) into an otherwise conventional model of economic growth. We prove that if the intertemporal production function is strictly concave, an equilibrium must converge to a unique steady state in which there is recurrent endogenous risk-taking. (The role played by concavity is clarified by considering a special case in which the production function is instead convex, in which there is no persistent risk-taking.) The steady state is fully characterized. It displays features that are consistent with the stylized facts that individuals both insure downside risk and gamble over upside risk, and it generates similar patterns of risk-taking and avoidance across environments with quite different overall wealth levels. Endogenous risk-taking here is generally Pareto-inefficient. A concern for status thus implies that persistent and inefficient risk-taking hinders the attainment of full equality.

We argue that poverty can perpetuate itself by undermining the capacity for self-control. In line with a distinguished psychological literature, we consider modes of self-control that involve the self-imposed use of contingent punishments and rewards. We study settings in which consumers with quasi-hyperbolic preferences confront an otherwise standard intertemporal allocation problem with credit constraints. Our main result demonstrates that low initial assets can limit self-control, trapping people in poverty, while individuals with high initial assets can accumulate indefinitely. Thus, even temporary policies that initiate accumulation among the poor may be effective. We examine implications concerning the effect of access to credit on saving, the demand for commitment devices, the design of financial accounts to promote accumulation, and the variation of the marginal propensity to consume across income from different sources. We also explore the nature of optimal self-control, demonstrating that it has a simple and behaviorally plausible structure that is immune to self-renegotiation.

Relative to developed countries and some parts of the developing world, most notably sub-Saharan Africa, there are far fewer women than men in India and China. It has been argued that as many as a 100 million women could be missing. The possibility of gender bias at birth and the mistreatment of young girls are widely regarded as key explanations. We provide a decomposition of these missing women by age and cause of death. While we do not dispute the existence of severe gender bias at young ages, our computations yield some striking new findings: (1) the vast majority of missing women in India and a significant proportion of those in China are of adult age; (2) as a proportion of the total female population, the number of missing women is largest in sub-Saharan Africa, and the absolute numbers are comparable to those for India and China; (3) almost all the missing women stem from disease-by-disease comparisons and not from the changing composition of disease, as described by the epidemiological transition. Finally, using historical data, we argue that a comparable proportion of women was missing at the start of the 20th century in the United States, just as they are in India, China, and sub-Saharan Africa today.

We study coalition formation in “real time”, a situation in which coalition formation is intertwined with the ongoing receipt of pay-offs. Agreements are assumed to be permanently binding: They can only be altered with the full consent of existing signatories. For characteristic function games we prove that equilibrium processes—whether or not these are history dependent—must converge to efficient absorbing states. For three-player games with externalities each player has enough veto power that a general efficiency result can be established. However, there exist four-player games in which all Markov equilibria are inefficient from every initial condition, despite the ability to write permanently binding agreements.

When human capital accumulation generates pecuniary externalities across professions, and capital markets are imperfect, persistent inequality in utility and consumption is inevitable in any steady state. This is true irrespective of the degree of divisibility in investments. However, divisibility (or fineness of occupational structure) has implications for both the multiplicity and Pareto-efficiency of steady states. Indivisibilities generate a continuum of inefficient and efficient steady states with varying per capita income. On the other hand, perfect divisibility typically implies the existence of a unique steady state distribution which is Pareto-efficient.

Learning-by-doing and increasing returns are often perceived to have similar implications for market structure and conduct. We analyse this in the context of an infinite-horizon price-setting game. Learning is shown to not reduce the viability of market-sharing collusion between a given number of firms, whereas intra-period increasing returns invariably does. We subsequently develop a model where the number of active firms is determined endogenously, under the assumption that the post-entry game is collusive. In this model, learning has no effect on concentration, while scale economies increase concentration.

A concept of an egalitarian solution is developed within the framework of cooperative game theory. The solution is designed to capture the interplay between social values (in this case, egalitarianism) and individual behavior. Both the final outcomes possible coalitional deviations are constrained by these social norms. The authors' main result: despite using a partial order (the Lorenz criterion) to compare allocations, their solution concept yields at most one allocation for each game. The concept is illustrated by a detailed study of convex games, and by a number of examples and applications. Copyright 1989 by The Econometric Society.

We consider the properties of equilibrium behaviour in an aggregative growth model with intergenerational altruism. Various positive properties such as the cyclicity of equilibrium programs, and the convergence of equilibrium stocks to a steady state, are analyzed. Among other normative properties, it is established that under certain natural conditions, Nash equilibrium programs are efficient and “modified Pareto optimal” in a sense made clear in the paper, but never Pareto optimal in the traditional sense.