What Do We Learn from Public Good Games About Voluntary Climate Action? Evidence from an Artefactual Field Experiment

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractEvidence from public good game experiments holds the promise of instructive and costeffective insights to inform environmental policy-making, for example on climate change mitigation. To fulfill the promise, such evidence needs to demonstrate generalizability to the specific policy context. This paper examines whether and under which conditions such evidence generalizes to voluntary mitigation decisions. We observe each participant in two different decision tasks: a real giving task in which contributions are used to directly reduce CO2 emissions and a public good game. Through two treatment variations, we explore two potential shifters of generalizability in a within-subjects design: the structural resemblance of contribution incentives between the tasks and the role of the subject pool, students and non-students. Our findings suggest that cooperation in public good games is linked to voluntary mitigation behavior, albeit not in a uniform way. For a standard set of parameters, behavior in both tasks is uncorrelated. Greater structural resemblance of the public goods game leads to sizable correlations, especially for student subjects.

Determinants of Prosocial Behavior in Included Versus Excluded Contexts

“…Similarly, we can wonder about the external validity of the PSB measure, and whether the prisoner’s dilemma game is useful in thinking about real world situations. Note that different studies have corroborated the external validity of the public good games ( Franzen and Pointner, 2013 ; Stoop, 2014 ; Goeschl et al, 2015 ; Rommel et al, 2015 ). In a recent study, Franzen and Pointner (2013) have demonstrated that in lab behavior is related to PSB in the field—these authors used a measure of PSB with a dilemma game similar to the one we have used in this experiment.…”

“…In a recent study, Franzen and Pointner (2013) have demonstrated that in lab behavior is related to PSB in the field—these authors used a measure of PSB with a dilemma game similar to the one we have used in this experiment. Moreover, recently Goeschl et al (2015) have shown that the prisoner’s dilemma game is related to PSB (giving money to reduce CO 2 emissions) in the field. Thus, research is showing some evidences of external validity of the prisoner’s dilemma game, and there is no reason to believe that the measure used in this experiment to assess PSB (the prisoner’s dilemma game) does not have ecological validity.…”

From Social Information to Social Norms: Evidence from Two Experiments on Donation Behaviour

“…The research assistant made sure that none of the subjects had previous experience with 8 The procedure, as well as a translation of the z-Tree instructions are provided in the Appendix. 9 Total earnings and duration for Experiment 1 encompass a second task (public goods game) that we analyse in a separate paper [35] and that took place subsequent to any decisions analysed in this paper. economic experiments or had taken part in a previous session.…”

Gaming Anthropology: The Problem of External Validity and the Challenge of Interpreting Experimental Games

“…Though other aspects of context (broadly defined) have been studied—including different incentives (e.g., Englmaier and Gebhardt 2016), different parameters and group sizes (e.g., Goeschl et al. 2015), and valence framing effects—here I focus on contextual framing effects (Figure 2 and Table S4). Hagen and Hammerstein (2006, 345) define a frame as “a knowledge structure or conceptual abstraction used to interpret a complex reality or experience, and guide behavior.” Even though classical EEGs are intentionally abstract and devoid of context, participants may provide their own frame by invoking relational cues, social and cultural norms, decision‐making heuristics, and past experiences.…”

“…One final aspect of generalizability that is often perceived as a threat to the external validity of EEGs is the sensitivity of game behavior to subtle changes in the contextual framing of the game (Levitt and List 2007a). Though other aspects of context (broadly defined) have been studied-including different incentives (e.g., Englmaier and Gebhardt 2016), different parameters and group sizes (e.g., Goeschl et al 2015), and valence framing effects-here I focus on contextual framing effects (Figure 2 and Table S4). Hagen and Hammerstein (2006, 345) define a frame as "a knowledge structure or conceptual abstraction used to interpret a complex reality or experience, and guide behavior."…”