The modeling and analysis of rotten kids

Becker's “Rotten Kid Theorem” has recently been examined in the context of public good contributions. We clarify several misconceptions that appear in the literature and establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of welfare maximizing sequential equilibria. Our results are presented without the imposition of convexity, differentiability, or even continuity constraints on the preferences of decision-makers.The helpful comments of an anonymous referee and editor are gratefully acknowledged.