Collective-action problems arise when private actions generate common consequences; for example, the private provision of a public good. This article asks: what shapes of public-good production function work well when play evolves over time, and hence moves between equilibria? Welfare-maximising...

Data from three bargaining games - the Dictator Game, the Ultimatum Game, and the Third-Party Punishment Game - played in 15 societies are presented.  The societies range from US undergraduates to Amazonian, Arctic, and African hunter-gatherers.  Behaviour within the games varies markedly...

During the Bretton Woods era, OECD countries grew at historically unprecedented rates. This Golden Age has many possible explanations, ranging from the return to liberal policies in international trade to a backlog of profitable growth opportunities after the neglect of the 1930s and war-time...

In a collective-action game a player`s payoff is the sum of (i) a private component that depends only on that player`s action, and (ii) a public component, common to all players and dependent upon all actions. A classic application is the private provision of a public good. Play evolves:...

A public good is produced if and only if a team of m or more volunteers contribute to it. An equilibrium-selection problem leads to the questions: will collective action succeed? If so, who will participate in the team? The paper studies the evolution of collective action: as part of a...

This paper studies collective-action games in which the production of a public good requires teamwork. A leading example is a threshold game in which provision requires the voluntary participation of "m "out of "n "players. Quantal-response strategy revisions allow play to move between...