Strategy-proof allocation mechanisms for pure public goods economies when preferences are monotonic

A fundamental problem in public finance is that of allocating a given budge t to financing the provision of public goods (education, transportation, po lice, etc.). In this paper it is established that when admissible preferenc es are those representable by continuous and increasing utility functions, then strategy-proof allocation mechanisms whose (undominated) range contain s three or more outcomes are dictatorial on the set of profiles of strictly increasing utility functions, a dense subset of the domain in the topologi es commonly used in this context. If admissible utility functions are furth er restricted to be strictly increasing, or if mechanisms are required to b e non-wasteful, then strategy-profness leads to (full) dictatorship.