Download or read book On the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods with Private Information written by Stefano Barbieri and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We examine the private provision of a public good whose level is determined by the least contribution of individual group members. Nash equilibrium can be efficient when the game is one of full information. This paper introduces private information about the costs of effort and characterizes equilibrium. In general, many Bayesian equilibria exist and even the "best" is inefficient. Equilibrium comparative statics are derived: improvements in the cost of even only one player benefit all, but riskier cost distributions have an ambiguous effect. Even with "weakest-link" public goods, where similarity of preferences would seem to facilitate coordination, increased heterogeneity (riskier distributions of cost) can increase payoffs. Two mechanisms are provided for improving equilibrium efficiency: technology transfer and cheap-talk communication. While substantial welfare gains are possible, examples show that i) technology transfer may be futile if a "regularity" condition identified herein is not satisfied and ii) cheap talk may be useless if the language for communication is not sufficiently rich.