Sharing the Cost of a Public Good without Subsidies

We study the construction of a social ordering function for the case of a public good financed by contributions from the population. We extend the analysis of <link rid="b2">Maniquet and Sprumont (2004)</link> to the case when cost shares cannot be negative, i.e., agents cannot receive subsidies from others. We adapt the Maniquet-Sprumont defense of public good welfare egalitarianism to this context. Weakening their Free Lunch Aversion axiom and adding a continuity requirement allows us to characterize the public good welfare maximin social ordering function. Copyright © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc..