Group-size effects in public goods provision: The voluntary contributions mechanism (by R. Mark Isaac and James M. Walker)

In this paper, Mark Isaac and Jimmy Walker did so much more for the study of public goods than simply examining the effects of group size on free riding. Their work opened our minds and imaginations to myriad new questions based on game theoretic models of social interactions and provided cogent methodology for addressing them. It is a critical marker on the path to our current understanding of this important area of research.