Does voluntary contracting suffice for the efficient provision of excludable public goods? Even in a complete information environment, we find that the answer is negative. The reason is that some agents may profit from not participating at the provision stage, but instead negotiate access ex post.

The final version of the paper is published with title "The Private Provision of Excludable Public Goods: An Inefficiency Result", with Tore Ellingsen (2012), the Journal of Public Economics, vol. 96(9-10), pp.658-669. Please find the published version of the paper on ScienceDirect.

Read the working paper version (16 February 2011) on our Slideshare channel below or download it here.