Understanding the motivations behind people’s voluntary contributions to public goods is crucial for the broader issues of economic and social development. By using the experimental design of Fischbacher et al. (2001), we investigate the distribution of contribution types in two developing...

Individuals often have legitimate but publicly unobservable reasons for not partaking in cooperative social endeavours. This means others who lack legitimate reasons may then have the opportunity to behave uncooperatively, i.e. free-ride, and be indistinguishable from those with legitimate...

Collaborative policy making has been an increasingly popular method of solving use conflicts on public lands. Representatives of interested groups are authorized to negotiate land use policy in the shadow of a government imposed backstop policy. This process can be modeled using cooperative game...

In one of the most ambitious forms of environmental decision-making, representatives of interested parties – environmentalists, developers, farmers, loggers, miners, etc. - are charged with the responsibility of developing a set of public policies that is acceptable to all of them. Although...

This paper discusses the standard welfare economics assumption anthropocentric welfarism, i.e. that only human well-being counts intrinsically. New survey evidence from a representative sample in Sweden is presented, indicating that anthropocentrism is strongly rejected, on average. However,...

Welfare economics relies on consequentialism. Whether a public action is good or bad is then determined by the consequences for people, rather than for example by the extent to which it infringes on others’ rights. Yet, many philosophers have questioned this assumption. The present note...

The conventional rational voter model has problems explaining why people vote, since the costs typically exceed the expected benefits. This paper presents Swedish survey evidence suggesting that people vote based on a combination of instrumental and expressive motives, and that people are...

Swedish survey-evidence indicates that variables reflecting self-interest are important in explaining people’s preferred speed limits, and that political preferences adapt to technological development. Drivers of cars that are newer (and hence safer), bigger, and with better high-speed...

This paper analyses normative implications of relaxing the conventional welfare economics assumptions anthropocentrism and welfarism, i.e. that only human well-being counts intrinsically, combined with various types of non-selfish individual preferences. Social decision rules are derived for the...

Improving public involvement in health system decision making stands as a primary goal in health systems reform. However, still limited evidence is found on how best to elicit preferences for health care programs. This paper examines a contingent choice technique to elicit preferences among...