|
If you are seeing this message, you may be experiencing temporary network problems. Please wait a few minutes and refresh the page. If the problem persists, you may wish to report it to your local Network Manager.
It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. In this case, although the visual presentation will be degraded, the site should continue to be functional. We recommend using the latest version of Microsoft or Mozilla web browser to help minimise these problems.
Wiley InterScience | ||||||||||
  Scandinavian Journal of EconomicsVolume 108 Issue 4, Pages 683 - 702 Special Issue: Political Economy Published Online: 3 Jan 2007 © 2009 the editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics
Abstract | References | Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 133K) | Related Articles | Citation Tracking  Flexible Integration? Mandatory and Minimum Participation Rules *I am indebted to two anonymous referees for extremely useful comments. I have also benefited from discussing the ideas with several colleagues at the Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences Department (MEDS), Northwestern University. Copyright The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2006 KEYWORDS Integration • enhanced cooperation • coalitions • free-riding KEYWORDS
D71 •
F53 Abstract
For a club such as the European Union, an important question is whether a subset of the members should be allowed to form "inner clubs" and enhance cooperation. Flexible cooperation allows members to participate if and only if they benefit, but it leads to free-riding when externalities are positive. I show that flexible cooperation is better if the heterogeneity is large and the externality small, but that rigid cooperation is the political equilibrium too often. Both regimes, however, are extreme variants of a more general system combining mandatory and minimum participation rules. For each rule, I characterize the optimum and the equilibrium. | 
|
