Public Observability of Decisions and Voluntary Contributions in a Multiperiod Context

Abstract

The authors conduct an experiment to explore whether contributions to a public good increase when public observation of contribution decisions is possible and whether any such increase is durable and transferable. Rege and Telle (2004) find that in one-shot games, public observation of all individuals' contribution decisions leads to higher contributions than would occur in the absence of such observation. In this study, the authors argue that public observation is ineffective in increasing contributions in a repeated game. Indeed, it actually reduces contribution rates relative to a treatment in which contribution decisions are not observable. Furthermore, prior experience with public observability reduces cooperative behavior in subsequent interaction in which decisions cannot be observed. The authors conjecture that approval incentives are more effective in leading to cooperative behavior when sanctioned parties are unable to avoid the expressions of disapproval they receive.

Conditional cooperation and disclosure in developing countries

“…On the one hand, disclosing the income-relevant contribution of each participant means that our paper is in line with previous literature that has studied the effect of disclosure on contributions to a public good which ex-ante facilitates comparison with other papers that have studied the issue like Rege and Telle (2004) and Noussair and Tucker (2007). On the other hand, it is difficult to know if, and if so, how, disclosing their income-relevant contribution rather than their strategy affects subjects' behavior.…”

“…It should however be noted that previous findings on the effect of introducing disclosure on contributions are mixed (e.g., Rege and Telle, 2004;Noussair and Tucker, 2007). The small positive effect from disclosure may indicate either that the image motivation to increase contribution level when subject to disclosure is small or the net effect of image and intrinsic motivations is small.…”

“…Thus, this indicates that the overall effect of the introduction of disclosure on changes in intrinsic (for example a negative effect through greed) and image (for example a positive effect through social approval) motivations resulted in a positive net effect on cooperative behavior. Noussair and Tucker (2007), however, find an insignificant effect of disclosure when using a design similar to Rege and Telle (2004), and in a multi-period public goods experiment with disclosure they find significantly lower contributions. It should be noted that the experiment by Noussair and Tucker (2007) used a multi-period setting, and thus there is a strategic motivation for cooperation in their case, which might affect behavior negatively through intrinsic and image motivations.…”

“…Noussair and Tucker (2007), however, find an insignificant effect of disclosure when using a design similar to Rege and Telle (2004), and in a multi-period public goods experiment with disclosure they find significantly lower contributions. It should be noted that the experiment by Noussair and Tucker (2007) used a multi-period setting, and thus there is a strategic motivation for cooperation in their case, which might affect behavior negatively through intrinsic and image motivations. The first objective of the present paper is to study the effect of disclosure of the contribution to the public good on contribution behavior and contribution type by using the innovative between-subject design by Fischbacher et al (2001) Saudi-Arabia, and the Yemen, and find differences in initial contribution between locations but a similar rate of decay in contributions over time.…”

Public disclosure for carbon abatement: African decision-makers in a PROPER public good experiment

“…This can be characterized as "conditional cooperation". However, Noussair and Tucker (2007), employing the same design as Rege and Telle (2004), and extending their one-shot game to a multiperiod game, found that public disclosure of own contribution had no effect on subsequent contributions in the public good experiment. Also, Martisson et al (2013) did not find any significant difference in unconditional contributions between the no-disclosure and disclosure treatments.…”