Stimulating Contributions to Public Goods through Information Feedback: Some Experimental Results

Abstract

In traditional public good experiments participants receive an endowment from the experimenter that can be invested in a public good or kept in a private account. In this paper we present an experimental environment where participants can invest time during five days to contribute to a public good. Participants can make contributions to a linear public good by logging into a web application and performing virtual actions. We compared four treatments, with different group sizes and information of (relative) performance of other groups. We find that information feedback about performance of other groups has a small positive effect if we control for various attributes of the groups. Moreover, we find a significant effect of the contributions of others in the group in the previous day on the number of points earned in the current day. Our results confirm that people participate more when participants in their group participate more, and are influenced by information about the relative performance of other groups.

Performance feedback in a group contest: A field experiment on electricity conservation

“…44Tan and Bolle (2007) found that providing competition information alone boosts the contribution in a public goods setting. Janssen et al (2016) extended this study in a large online experiment under the sustainable development framework and found that feedback in a competitive state raises eco‐friendly movement by approximately 5%.…”

“…Erev et al (1993) and Nalbantian and Schotter (1997) demonstrated that adding a group‐level competition component in a public goods setting increases cooperation within groups 3. While studies have shown that individuals care about the performance of their group against other groups (Janssen et al, 2016; Tan & Bolle, 2007), it is well established in various settings that individuals also care about their individual performances in comparison with those of other individuals (Allcott, 2011; Y. Chen et al, 2010; Croson & Shang, 2008; Frey & Meier, 2004). 4…”

“…For example, H. Chen and Lim (2013) compared the motivations in group and individual contests directly. They showed that guilt aversion made contestants more willing to invest efforts in group contests.3 Examining group coordination problems,Bornstein et al (2002) also showed that intergroup competition improves coordination and cooperation within groups.4 Tan and Bolle (2007) found that providing competition information alone boosts the contribution in a public goods setting Janssen et al (2016). extended this study in a large online experiment under the sustainable development framework and found that feedback in a competitive state raises eco-friendly movement by approximately 5%.5 This competition effect also works through an increase in testosterone Mazur and Booth (1998).…”