英国威廉希尔公司经济学前沿高端讲座第四十三讲    

Coordination via Alternative Assurance Mechanisms in Threshold Public Goods Provision  

主讲人：李智副教授（厦门大学经济学院财政系和王亚南经济研究院）  

主持人：杨程助理教授（英国威廉希尔公司李安民经济研究院）  

嘉宾介绍：何真瑜助理教授（英国威廉希尔公司李安民经济研究院）  

时间：2023年12月15日（周五）  9：30-11：00（北京时间）  

地点：英国威廉希尔公司崇山校区五洲园一楼会议室  

线上地址：腾讯会议：332-605-075  

语言：中文/英文  

摘要：

We propose a generalized assurance mechanism (GAM) to enhance the voluntary provision of threshold public goods, unifying three related designs in the existing literature, including the dominant assurance contract (DAC, Tabarrok (1998)), refund bonus (RBM, Zubrickas (2014)), and assurance payment (APM, Li et al. (2014)). All three mechanisms encourage more contributions by providing contributors with assurance compensation when the project fails: DAC specifies a take-it-or-leave-it offer with a contribution amount for provision, an assurance for non-provision, and the minimum number of contributors, RBM provides assurance in proportion to the contribution value, and APM pays a fixed assurance once a minimum offer level is reached. We characterize the equilibrium set of GAM and compare the three mechanisms in both a unified theory framework and lab experiments. Although all three mechanisms significantly reduce non-provision free-riding equilibria and share the same set of provision equilibria under general conditions, they differ in marginal assurance structures (i.e., the marginal benefit of contributions from assurance under non-provision), resulting significantly different provision rates in experiments.  A fixed contribution threshold to receive assurance with a zero-marginal assurance is identified as a key feature to facilitate equilibrium selection and promote cooperation.  As an explicit signal and focal point, the contribution threshold not only coordinates group contributions to approach the cost, but also significantly reduces the frequency of miscoordination-induced non-provision non-equilibrium outcomes. The insight is that a zero-marginal assurance discourages the disequilibrium non-provision strategies and hence improves the provision and overall social welfare.  

主讲人简介：  

李智，厦门大学经济学院财政系和王亚南经济研究院副教授，博士生导师，财政系副主任，美国华盛顿大学（西雅图）经济学博士，北京大学环境科学硕士和大气科学学士。以博弈论和经济实验为主要工具，对各类公共政策进行制度设计和事前量化评估，聚焦于资源环境领域，致力于从市场和机制设计角度为制定更有效的资源分配和使用政策提供前瞻性研究，贡献于碳排放权交易机制设计、应对气候变化国际合作谈判机制研究，水资源、渔业资源和各种生态产品分配和价值实现机制设计。论文发表于Journal of Public Economics，Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Public Economic Theory，Environmental and Resource Economics, PLOS ONE等期刊。主持国家自然科学基金面上项目2项。目前担任国际期刊Resource and Energy Economics副主编（Associate Editor），中国环境科学学会碳排放交易专业委员会委员。