Toilet Cleaning and Department Chairing: Volunteering a Public service

Marc Bilodeau () and Al Slivinski ()

Public Economics from EconWPA

Abstract: Who will do a job that nobody wants but that someone has to do? The search for a volunteer is modelled as a war of attrition in which everyone is tempted to just wait for someone else to do it. We show that the volunteer will be, ceteris paribus, the individual for whom the benefit/cost ratio of performing the public service is the largest, the one most impatient to consume it, or the one who stands to benefit from it the longest.

JEL-codes: D6 D7 H (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Note: 8 pages
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Related works:
Working Paper: Toilet Cleaning and Department Chairing: Volunteering a public service (1994)
Journal Article: Toilet cleaning and department chairing: Volunteering a public service (1996)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:9405001

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