Let us begin with a short political story. You live in a small village with a crime problem.
Vandals roam the village, stealing and destroying people's property. No one seems to be …

In the US, nearly 60% of recently built single-family houses, and 80% of houses in new
subdivisions, are part of a homeowners association (HOA). We construct the first near …

Ballot box voting is often considered the essence of political freedom. But, it has two major
shortcomings: individual voters have little chance of making a difference, and they also face …

While community associations were relatively uncommon only a few decades ago, they now
outnumber municipal governments in the United States. Since 1970, the number of …

The world's urban population quadrupled between 1950 and 2000. By 2050, it will have
doubled again. Total population and the rate of urbanization are both increasing faster in the …

We examine how location in a gated community affects the value of a single-family home
and the valuation of a beach. Using data on 2,358 sales on barrier islands near Charleston …

The most important change in local government in the United States in the last quarter of the
twentieth century was the rise of the private community asso ciation (Dilger 1992; Foldvary …

Outsourcing public service provision to the private and nonprofit sectors has been well-
documented and studied for over two decades as manifestations of the hollow state, but …

This empirical study uses a hedonic pricing model and a dataset of Spartanburg, South
Carolina homes from 2002 to 2005 to evaluate the effect of Residential Community …

Libertarians tend to oppose hierarchical authority, and advocate the privatization of public
goods. However, not all collective action problems can be solved so easily; collective …