Defending the Articles of Conferation: A response to Sobel

A fundamental mystery of the Articles of Confederation is why the states co ntributed sizeable resources to the confederation government when they were allegedly caught in a collective action problem. In a recent article, Russ el Sobel denies the collective action problem and suggests that our researc h on the incentive structure of the confederation contradicts the evidence. This note clarifies both of our arguments, introduces the type of evidence that would determine whether national public goods were sub-optimally supp lied, and explains why states contributed in a manner that is consistent wi th the evidence and with a deficient institutional design.