This book presents a theoretical treatment of externalities, public goods, and club goods. The new edition updates and expands the discussion of externalities and their implications, coverage of asymmetric information, underlying game-theoretic formulations, and intuitive and graphical presentations. Aimed at well-prepared undergraduates and graduate students making a serious foray into this branch of economics, the analysis should also interest professional economists wishing to survey recent advances in the field. No other single source for the range of materials explored is currently (...) available. Topics investigated include Nash equilibrium, Lindahl equilibria, club theory, preference-revelation mechanism, Pigouvian taxes, the commons, Coase Theorem, and static and repeated games. The authors use mathematical techniques only as much as necessary to pursue the economic argument. They develop key principles of public economics that are useful for subfields such as public choice, labor economics, economic growth, international economics, environmental and natural resource economics, and industrial organization. (shrink)

Although the global community has achieved some success in endeavors such as eradicating smallpox, efforts to coordinate nations' actions in others--such as the reduction of drug trafficking--have not been sufficient. Identifying the factors that promote, or inhibit, successful collective action for an ever-growing set of challenges associated with globalization, Todd Sandler applies them to promoting global health, providing foreign assistance, controlling rogue nations, limiting transnational terrorism, and intervening in civil wars.

The primary purpose of this book is to present some of the key economic concepts that have guided economic thinking in the last century and to identify which of these concepts will continue to direct economic thought in the coming decades. This book is written in an accessible manner and is intended for a wide audience with little or no formal training in economics. It should also interest economists who want to reflect on the direction of the discipline and to (...) learn concepts and achievements in other subfields. The author imparts his enthusiasm for the economic way of reasoning and its wide applicability. Through the abundant use of illustrations and examples, the author makes concepts understandable and relevant. Topics covered include game theory, the new institutional economics, market failures, asymmetric information, endogenous growth theory, general equilibrium, rational expectations, and others. (shrink)

The Political Economy of Terrorism presents a widely accessible political economy approach to the study of terrorism. It applies economic methodology – theoretical and empirical – combined with political analysis and realities to the study of domestic and transnational terrorism. In so doing, the book provides both a qualitative and quantitative investigation of terrorism in a balanced up-to-date presentation that informs students, policy makers, researchers and the general reader of the current state of knowledge. Included are historical aspects, a discussion (...) of watershed events, the rise of modern-day terrorism, examination of current trends, the dilemma of liberal democracies, evaluation of counterterrorism, analysis of hostage incidents and much more. The new edition expands coverage of every chapter, adds a new chapter on terrorist network structures and organization, accounts for changes in the Department of Homeland Security and the USA Patriot Act and insurance against terrorism. Rational-actor models of terrorist and government behavior and game-theoretic analysis are presented for readers with no prior theoretical training. Where relevant, the authors display graphs using data from International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events, the Global Terrorism Database, and other public-access data sets. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on changing moral values associated with the provision of public goods, which incorporates an additional moral condition based on donor self-interest. Assistance for less-developed countries to replace ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons with non-ozone-depleting hydrofluorocarbons helps the donor country to achieve a thicker stratospheric ozone layer, which protects its own citizens, along with others. The elimination of corrupt practices can provide LDCs with markets for primary exports and lead to better provision of public goods. Improved economic conditions in these countries (...) through different economic and humanitarian measures can improve the prospects of secondary public goods sectors. Aggregator technologies can also play a key role in public goods assistance, with greater implications for the donor and recipient countries. (shrink)

This article applies formal modeling to study a terrorist group''s choice of whether to attack or not, and, in the case of an attack, which of two potential targets to strike. Each potential target individually takes protective measures that influence the terrorists'' perceived success and failure, and, hence, the likelihood of attack. For domestic terrorism, a tendency for potential targets to overdeter is indicated. For transnational terrorism, cases of overdeterrence and underdeterrence are identified. We demonstrate that increased information about terrorists'' (...) preferences, acquired by the targets, may exacerbate inefficiency when deterrence efforts are not coordinated. In some cases, perfect information may eliminate the existence of a noncooperative solution. (shrink)