Enforcement of contribution norms in public good games with heterogeneous populations

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 Enforcement of Contribution Norms in Public Good Games with Heterogeneous Populations AbstractEconomic and social interaction takes place between individuals with heterogeneous characteristics. We investigate experimentally the emergence and informal enforcement of different contribution norms to a public good in homogeneous and different heterogeneous groups. When punishment is not allowed all groups converge towards free-riding. With punishment, contributions increase and differ distinctly across groups and individuals with different induced characteristics. We show econometrically that these differences are not accidentally but enforced by punishment. The enforced contribution norms are related to fairness ideas of equity regarding the contributions but not regarding the earnings. Individuals with different characteristics tacitly agree on the norm to be enforced, even if this leads to large payoff differences. Our results also emphasize the role of details of the environment that may alter focal contribution norms in an important way.JEL Code: H41, C92, Z13.

The Opportunity Costs of Conservation with Deterministic and Probabilistic Degradation Externalities

“…Relative to previous studies, these aspects of the design allows us to more systematically compare appropriation decisions in symmetric and asymmetric settings. In particular, previous public good experiments focus on only a subset of these comparisons (Bagnoli and McKee 1991;Chan et al 1999;Fisher et al 1995;Tan 2008;Noussair and Tan 2011;Nikiforakis et al 2012;Reuben and Riedl 2013;Fischbacher et al 2014). 5…”

Peer-Punishment in a Cooperation and a Coordination Game

“…Moreover, equilibria in the WL game can be ranked with g i,j,k,l = 20 being the most efficient and payoff dominant and g i,j,k,l = 0 being the least efficient and risk dominant equilibrium. 3 Pre-defined sets of triples are reported in the Appendix A. 4 If, by chance, a triple would match to the real combination of contributions, the subject would not face this triple.…”

“…An extensive body of research documents human failure to cooperate in order to jointly provide goods if societal and individual interests are at odds (e.g., [1][2][3]). However, despite Nash equilibrium predictions of complete absence of cooperation in the presence of egocentric payoff maximizers, (some) individuals cooperate at least to some degree (e.g., [4,5]).…”

“…Reputation (e.g., [9]), trust (e.g., [10]), pre-play communication (cheap talk) (e.g., [11]), or mutual monitoring (e.g., [12]) are such effective countermeasures, improving cooperation levels in the lab and in the field. Similarly, the availability of sanctions via peer-punishment (e.g., [3,[13][14][15]) or as a centralized system (e.g., [16][17][18]) can lead to improvements in cooperation, resulting in higher provision of public goods.…”

Community dynamics in the lab

“…Fellner et al (2011) find that, on average, subjects contribute less when individual marginal returns cannot be linked to individual behavior and less still if they are unaware of the distribution of returns. In a public goods game in which participants are aware of each player's returns, Reuben and Riedl (2013) find that a punishment mechanism is used to enforce contributions proportional to returns. our local communities and that non-residents may be geographically excluded from consuming them.…”