Why do individuals participate in charitable gambling and state-run lotteries? In contrast to previous explanations that rely on risk-preference or pure love of gambling motives, we present a model where risk-neutral expected utility maximizers explicitly recognize that lotteries are being used...

This paper investigates mechanisms for the private provision of a public good which utilize competition to incentivize contributions. Theory predicts that 'all-pay' competition is particularly effective for fundraising. Within this class of mechanisms different types of lotteries and all-pay...