Abstract
Clubs, whether one speaks of the Girl Guides, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, a homeowners’ association, or the Republican Party, are private organizations whose members collectively consume (and often produce) at least one good or service that no one person has the capacity unilaterally to finance. Clubs are thus of interest to public choice scholars because they must solve the same kinds of collective action problems government faces in the provision of public goods. Moreover, while there are exceptions to the rule (e.g., closed union shops), clubs solve these problems voluntarily rather than coercively.
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Anderson, G.M., Shughart, W.F., Tollison, R.D. (2004). The Economic Theory of Clubs. In: Rowley, C.K., Schneider, F. (eds) The Encyclopedia of Public Choice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-47828-4_81
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-47828-4_81
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