Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods

Fischbacher, Urs; Schudy, Simeon; Teyssier, Sabrina

doi:10.1007/s00355-013-0763-x

Cited by 71 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…and to provide a logical progression to our treatments (49,50). In all cases, communication was forbidden, and we provided no feedback on earnings or the behavior of groupmates.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments

Burton-Chellew

Mouden

West

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

123

140

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Economic experiments are often used to study if humans altruistically value the welfare of others. A canonical result from public-good games is that humans vary in how they value the welfare of others, dividing into fair-minded conditional cooperators, who match the cooperation of others, and selfish noncooperators. However, an alternative explanation for the data are that individuals vary in their understanding of how to maximize income, with misunderstanding leading to the appearance of cooperation. We show that (i) individuals divide into the same behavioral types when playing with computers, whom they cannot be concerned with the welfare of; (ii) behavior across games with computers and humans is correlated and can be explained by variation in understanding of how to maximize income; (iii) misunderstanding correlates with higher levels of cooperation; and (iv) standard control questions do not guarantee understanding. These results cast doubt on certain experimental methods and demonstrate that a common assumption in behavioral economics experiments, that choices reveal motivations, will not necessarily hold.altruism | strategy method | inequity aversion | reciprocity | social preferences

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“…and to provide a logical progression to our treatments (49,50). In all cases, communication was forbidden, and we provided no feedback on earnings or the behavior of groupmates.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments

Burton-Chellew

Mouden

West

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

123

140

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“…Fisher et al find that while players react to the changes in their own MPCR, their contributing behavior is neutral to the presence of uncertainty about others' MPCRs. In a recent study, Fischbacher et al (2014) swap the sources of Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne -2017.04 uncertainty and show that uncertainty about personal MPCR slightly (yet significantly) decreases contributions when MPCR is heterogeneous within a group and has a predetermined distribution that is common knowledge.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, the design of Fisher et al (1995) combines uncertainty about the distribution of MPCR given to other players with certainty about one's own MPCR. In Fischbacher et al (2014), in turn, the distribution of MPCRs in a group is common knowledge, while one's own MPCR remains uncertain. The contribution levels are found to be neutral to the first type of partial uncertainty, and diminished slightly due to the second type of partial uncertainty.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Uncertainty Deter Provision of Public Goods?

Boulu-Reshef¹,

Brott²,

Zylbersztejn³

2017

Revue Économique

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We study a finitely repeated public goods game (based on the voluntary contribution mechanism) played under complete uncertainty about the marginal benefit of the public good relative to the private consumption (commonly known as the marginal per capita return): neither one's marginal per capita return nor other players' marginal per capita returns are known at the time of decisionmaking. We show that contributions are equivalent when the rate of return is predetermined and when it is uncertain, and display a similar decay over time. Combined with the previous experimental findings, our results suggest that the cooperation in public goods games is sensitive to the source of uncertainty about marginal per capita return.

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“…Gangadharan and Nemes (2009) also find reduced contribution under uncertain provision of the public good in cases of known and unknown probability of provision. In a strategy-method public goods game with heterogeneous marginal returns, Fischbacher et al (2014) find that uncertainty about one's own marginal return slightly decreases conditional contribution, but not unconditional contribution. Levati et al (2009) find a large negative effect of uncertain marginal benefits of contribution, while Levati and Morone (2013) find mixed results depending on game parameters.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 86%

Cursed beliefs with common-value public goods

Cox

2015

Journal of Public Economics

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractI show how improper conditioning of beliefs can reduce contribution in public goods environments with interdependent values. I consider a simple model of a binary, excludable public good. In equilibrium, provision of the public good is good news about its value. Naïve players who condition expectations only on their private information contribute too little, despite the absence of free-riding incentives. In a laboratory experiment, contributions indeed fall short of the equilibrium prediction. Using modified games with different belief-conditioning effects, I verify that subjects fail to condition beliefs properly. However, improper belief conditioning cannot fully explain the results.

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Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods

Cited by 71 publications

References 37 publications

Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments

Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments

Does Uncertainty Deter Provision of Public Goods?

Cursed beliefs with common-value public goods

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