We analyze dynamic private provision of a discrete public good by heterogeneous agents, who differ in terms of their levels of impatience, in a differential game framework. In contrast to the strategic complementarity result for homogeneous individuals, we show that an asymmetric completion Markov perfect equilibrium exists, where the individual contributions and the strategic behaviors depend crucially on an impatience differential: the difference in rates of time preference across groups of individuals. When this differential is insignificant, contributions of both types of individuals are strategic complements. On the other hand, when this impatience differential exceeds a threshold, the contributions of impatient individuals become strategic substitutes, whereas the contributions of patient individuals remain strategic complements. We show that group size has an interesting role to play in the strategic behavior: increasing the number of patient individuals aggravates the incentives to free‐ride by the impatient agents. We also derive a condition under which all the socially beneficial projects get completed in the equilibrium.

In this paper, we study the role of a tax-funded public security system in superior technology adoption by strategic agents and consequent welfare implications of improvement in property security in an environment where rights to private property are completely insecure. We show that if property insecurity leads to technological backwardness (through strategic non-adoption of costlessly available superior technologies), a tax-funded public security that thwarts appropriation (much like a security-guard) can successfully support superior technology adoption by strategic agents in a subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium. The superior technology equilibrium might even be welfare improving over the technological backwardness equilibrium if the available technology spectrum is sufficiently wide. We then study-within the confines of superior technology adoption-whether more secure property is always welfare improving for everyone. We find that better property security-although growth-enhancing-might not be welfare improving for all. Indeed, it is possible that the poor are made worse-off as a consequence of reallocation of resources in response to enhanced property security and not because public authorities are corruptible. In such a situation, we design a budget-balanced tax-linked-transfer scheme where the poor is given a tax-relief at the expense of an additional tax burden on the rich agent. We show that for a below thirty percent tax relief to the poor, a Pareto-improving movement towards property security can be achieved.

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Joydeep Bhattacharya and Dr. Ananda Weerasinghe, for their inspiration, supporting encouragements and numerous invaluable suggestions. Their insightful advising in research and other academic endeavors were impeccable and made me capable to overcome the impediments. Every encounter that I have had with them was immense learning opportunity which indeed qualitatively contributed in my academic and professional development. My sincere thanks also to my committee members, Dr. John Schroeter, Dr. Helle Bunzel and Dr. Dan Nordman for their valuable suggestions and contributions in improving my research. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Arijit Sen for inspiring me to believe in myself and motivating me to pursue graduate studies. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my parents, Malay and Maya Bhattacharya, for their love and support and to my fiancee, Kavita Sardana for her progressive emotional support, companionship and constant faith in my capability. I would also like to thank my friends, especially Ranojoy Basu and Samarjit Das for their kindness, support and friendship which helped me get through many difficult situations. Last but not the least, I would like to thank all the staff members of the department of Economics for their constant support and caring for me. viii