Detroit automakers have opposed mandated improvements in fuel economy since legislation was first proposed in the 1970’s. Their opposition is based, among other considerations, on the assumption that their customers value fuel economy only when fuel prices are high. This paper presents the...

Democracy resolves conflicts in difficult games like Prisoners’ Dilemma and Chicken by stabilizing their cooperative outcomes. It does so by transforming these games into games in which voters are presented with a choice between a cooperative outcome and a Pareto-inferior noncooperative...

I show how improper conditioning of beliefs can lead to under-contribution in public goods environments with interdependent values. I consider a simple model of a binary, excludable public good. In equilibrium, provision of the public good is good news about its value. Naive players who...