The effect of group size on public good provision in a repeated game setting

The ability to cooperate in the provision of a pubic good is analyzed in a repeated game. Holding the level of provision fixed, with quasi-linear utility we find that the critical value of the discount parameter converges to 0 in the limit. Thus, cooperation is feasible in a large market. Next, we allow the level cooperation to be adjusted optimally as the group size increases, both for a specific form of quasi-linear utility and for Cobb-Douglas utility. In each case, we find that there are admissible values of the discount parameter such that cooperation may be maintained in the limit. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.