A Tragedy Of The Clubs: Excess Entry in Exclusive Coalitions

We study how social norms and individual rationality in the process of coalition formation sustain a particular form of collective inefficiency, namely excessive entry in the joint production and exploitation of an excludable good. We term this phenomenon the `tragedy of the clubs'. We model club formation as a non-cooperative game of coalition formation and surplus division, and show that, contrary to common wisdom, the tragedy of the clubs is a pervasive equilibrium phenomenon.Clubs, Coalition Formation, Multiperson Bargaining