Two essays on the economic theory of clubs
Description
This dissertation consists of two essays in the field of economic theory of clubs The first essay is concerned with the problem of deriving Pareto-optimal conditions for an economy in which people affected by the quality of services themselves determine the number of people to be affected in order to maximize the utility received from the services. Three cases are investigated: (1) the efficiency conditions for the club where the club is constrained to choose the price scheme in the form of fixed-charge; (2) the conditions under which a system of segregated clubs is optimal; and (3) the efficiency conditions for the club size where the optimal size of it is large relative to total population The second essay examines some controversies which appeared in the club literature: (1) the conflict between objectives of club problem; (2) the question of whether a single unified framework can apply to both replicable and nonreplicable clubs; (3) the question of whether members should be distinguished from non-members; and (4) the issue concerning the self-financing Above all, it is argued that the optimal number of clubs, the composition of population and the objective of clubs, as well as the form of both the utility function and the constraint in the model, are crucial in determining the true Pareto-efficiency conditions