Dutch treat versus Oriental treat

We introduce a class of goods called "ping-pong goods" whose values are generated only through joint consumption by two or more people. Mainly, we compare the efficiency of two fee sharing rules. One is the Dutch rule, whereby each participant bears its own expenses and the other is the Oriental rule, whereby the initial proposer bears all the expenses. We assert that the consumers' surplus under the Oriental rule is higher than the consumers' surplus under the Dutch rule only if the per-person price is high and the number of participants in consuming a ping-pong good is small. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.