Accumulation of Public Goods and Population Change in a Voluntary Participation Game

We consider how public goods can be provided and accumulated over generations of self-interested individuals in the absence of a government authority. A dynamic voluntary participation game is presented to analyze interrelations among group formation, accumulation and population change. We show that the accumulation of public goods can mitigate the second-order dilemma of public goods and that it necessarily leads all individuals to participate in providing public goods in the long run. We discuss a positive effect of population increase on the accumulation of public goods.