The Measles and Free Riders

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHARINE BROWNE
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Free Ride ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Parental Decisions

Abstract:This article takes up a game-theoretic perspective on California’s recently passed bill (SB 277) that closes all nonmedical exemptions for school-mandated vaccination. Such a perspective characterizes parental decisions to vaccinate their children as a collective action problem and reveals the presence of an incentive to free ride—to enjoy the benefits of others’ efforts to vaccinate their children without vaccinating one’s own. This article defends California’s legislation as a reasonable means of overcoming the free rider problem and of ensuring that the burdens of vaccination are shared equally.

scholarly journals The Effect of Trusting and Trustworthy Environments on the Provision of Public Goods

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Lo Iacono ◽  
Burak Sonmez
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Learning Effect ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Similar Distribution ◽  
Incentive Structure ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Free Ride ◽  
Relevant Effect ◽  
Distribution Of Resources

Abstract Trusting and trustworthy environments are argued to promote collective action, as people learn to rely on their fellow citizens and believe that only few individuals will free ride. To test the causal validity of this mechanism, we propose an experimental design that allows us to create different trusting and trustworthy conditions simply by (i) manipulating the incentive structure of an iterated binary trust game and (ii) allowing information to flow among participants. Findings indicate that, given a similar distribution of resources among subjects, trusting and trustworthy environments strongly foster the provision of public goods. This outcome is largely driven by a learning effect: subjects transfer what they assimilate during a sequence of dyadic exchanges to their decision to act for the collectivity. In particular, results showed that what we learn from the community has a relevant effect on our ability to overcome the free-rider problem: we are more likely to act for the collectivity when we learn from the community to be trustful or reliable in our one-to-one interactions. The same applies in the opposite direction: we are more prone to free ride when we learn from the environment to be distrustful or unreliable in our dyadic exchanges.

scholarly journals Modes of Collective Action in Village Economies: Evidence from Natural and Artefactual Field Experiments in a Developing Country

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuyuki Sawada ◽  
Ryuji Kasahara ◽  
Keitaro Aoyagi ◽  
Masahiro Shoji ◽  
Mika Ueyama
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Size Effect ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Individual Contribution ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Group Size Effect

In a canonical model of collective action, individual contribution to collective action is negatively correlated with group size. Yet, empirical evidence on the group size effect has been mixed, partly due to heterogeneities in group activities. In this paper, we first construct a simple model of collective action with the free rider problem, altruism, public goods, and positive externalities of social networks. We then empirically test the theoretical implications of the group size effect on individual contribution to four different types of collective action, i.e., monetary or nonmonetary contribution to directly or indirectly productive activities. To achieve this, we collect and employ artefactual field experimental data such as public goods and dictator games conducted in southern Sri Lanka under a natural experimental situation where the majority of farmers were relocated to randomly selected communities based on the government lottery. This unique situation enables us to identify the causal effects of community size on collective action. We find that the levels of collective action can be explained by the social preferences of farmers. We also show evidence of free riding by self-interested households with no landholdings. The pattern of collective action, however, differs significantly by mode of activity—collective action that is directly rather than indirectly related to production is less likely to suffer from the free rider problem. Also, monetary contribution is less likely to cause free riding than nonmonetary labor contribution. Unlike labor contributions, monetary contributions involve collection of fees which can be easily tracked and verified, possibly leading to better enforcement of collective action.

Free-Rider Problems in the Production of Collective Goods

1987 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Hampton
Keyword(s):  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Collective Good ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Collective Goods ◽  
Partial Analysis ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Willingness To Contribute

There has been a persistent tendency to identify what is called “the freerider problem” in the production of collective (or public) goods with the prisoner's dilemma. However, in this article I want to challenge that identification by presenting an analysis of what are in fact a variety of collective action problems in the production of collective goods. My strategy is not to consult any intuitions about what the free-rider problem is; rather I will be looking at the problematic game-theoretic structures of various situations associated with the production of different types of collective goods, thereby showing what sorts of difficulties a community concerned with their voluntary production would face. I call all of these dilemmas free-rider problems because in all of them certain individuals find it rational to take advantage of others' willingness to contribute to the good in a way that threatens its production. Some readers may feel that the term ‘free-rider problem’ is so identified with the prisoner's dilemma that my extension of the term in this way “jars”; if so, I invite them to coin another word for the larger phenomenon. My aim is not to engage in linguistic analysis but to attempt at least a partial analysis of the complicated structure of collective good production.

On the limits of unsolvability of the “free rider problem”

2016 ◽  
pp. 57-75
Author(s):  
A. Yudanov ◽  
O. Pyrkina ◽  
E. Bekker
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Model ◽  
Markov Chain ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Effective Decision ◽  
Absorbing States

The article reinterprets the classic «free rider problem» known as unsolvable from the position of how the free rider’s surrounding affects him. It introduces the concepts of public and private harm from the free rider’s activity. It also describes a wide variety of manifestations of the “free ridership” in which the private harm suffered by significant social groups is large enough to cause on their part an active opposition to free riders. According to the authors, under proper institutional conditions this opposition results in effective decision of the “free rider problem”. They offer a mathematical model of the process: the Markov chain with a single or multiple absorbing states.

Dilemmas of Interaction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Vanderschraaf
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Nash Equilibrium ◽  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Mathematical Theory ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Noncooperative Game ◽  
Noncooperative Game Theory ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Principles Of Justice

Problems of interaction, which give rise to justice, are structurally problems of game theory, the mathematical theory of interactive decisions. Five problems of interaction are introduced that are all intrinsically important and that help motivate important parts of the discussions in subsequent chapters: the Farmer’s Dilemma, impure coordination, the Stag Hunt, the free-rider problem, and the choice for a powerless party to acquiesce or resist. Elements of noncooperative game theory essential to analyzing problems of justice are reviewed, including especially games in the strategic and extensive forms, the Nash equilibrium, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and games of incomplete information. Each of the five motivating problems is reformulated game-theoretically. These game-theoretic reformulations reveal precisely why the agents involved would have difficulty arriving at mutually satisfactory resolutions, and why “solutions” for these problems call for principles of justice to guide the agents’ conduct.

scholarly journals A Two-Step Methodology for Free Rider Mitigation with an Improved Settlement Algorithm: Regression in CBL Estimation and New Incentive Payment Rule in Residential Demand Response

Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunjung Lee ◽  
Dongsik Jang ◽  
Jinho Kim
Keyword(s):  
Demand Response ◽  
Electricity Consumption ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Peak Time ◽  
Incentive Payment ◽  
Step Method ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Baseline Estimation

Recent demand response (DR) research efforts have focused on reducing the peak demand, and thereby electricity prices. Load reductions from DR programs can be viewed as equivalent electricity generation by conventional means. Thus, utility companies must pay incentives to customers who reduce their demand accordingly. However, many key variables intrinsic to residential customers are significantly more complicated compared to those of commercial and industrial customers. Thus, residential DR programs are economically difficult to operate, especially because excess incentive settlements can result in free riders, who get incentives without reducing their loads. Improving baseline estimation accuracy is insufficient to solve this problem. To alleviate the free rider problem, we proposed an improved two-step method—estimating the baseline load using regression and implementing a minimum-threshold payment rule. We applied the proposed method to data from residential customers participating in a peak-time rebate program in Korea. It initially suffered from numerous free riders caused by inaccurate baseline estimation. The proposed method mitigated the issue by reducing the number of free riders. The results indicate the possibility of lowering the existing incentive payment. The findings indicate that it is possible to run more stable residential DR programs by mitigating the uncertainty associated with customer electricity consumption.

Costs and benefits in hunter-gatherer punishment

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Boehm
Keyword(s):  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis ◽  
Made In

AbstractHunter-gatherer punishment involves costs and benefits to individuals and groups, but the costs do not necessarily fit with the assumptions made in models that consider punishment to be altruistic – which brings in the free-rider problem and the problem of second-order free-riders. In this commentary, I present foragers' capital punishment patterns ethnographically, in the interest of establishing whether such punishment is likely to be costly; and I suggest that in many cases abstentions from punishment that might be taken as defections by free-riders are actually caused by social-structural considerations rather than being an effect of free-rider genes. This presentation of data supplements the ethnographic analysis provided by Guala.

Catalytic Cooperation

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 73-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hale
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Preference Heterogeneity ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Global Public Goods ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
International Climate

Scholars typically model the politics of global public goods or common pool resources as difficult collective action problems. Theories of international organization aim to explain how institutions can promote cooperation by solving the free rider problem. Based on an analysis of a quintessential global collective action problem—international climate mitigation—this article challenges both this diagnosis of the problem and the concomitant institutional remedies. Important elements of climate mitigation exhibit three key features that depart from the canonical model: joint goods, preference heterogeneity, and increasing returns. The presence of these features creates the possibility for “catalytic cooperation.” Under such conditions, the chief barrier to cooperation is not the threat of free riding but the lack of incentive to act in the first place. States and other actors seek to solve this problem by creating “catalytic institutions” that work to shift actors’ preferences and strategies toward cooperative outcomes over time. While catalytic institutions can be seen in many areas of world politics, the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change has put this logic of cooperation at its core, raising the possibility that similar catalytic institutions may facilitate cooperation in other areas of world politics characterized by analogous problem structures.

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