The Strategy-Proof Provision of Public Goods under Congestion and Crowding Preferences

We examine the strategy-proof provision of excludable public goods when agents care about the number of other consumers. We show that strategy-proof and efficient social choice functions satisfying an outsider independence condition must always assign a fixed number of consumers, regardless of individual desires to participate. A hierarchical rule selects participants and a generalized median rule selects the level of the Public good. Under heterogeneity in agents' views oil the optimal number of consumers, strategy-proof, efficient, and outsider independent social choice functions are much more limited and in an important case must be dictatorial.