scholarly journals Provision of noxious facilities using a market-like mechanism: A simple implementation in the lab

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cesar Mantilla ◽  
Federica Alberti
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Veto Power ◽  
Waste Incinerator ◽  
Public Project ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Noxious Facilities ◽  
Simple Implementation ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Group Member

We study the provision of a public project that globally behaves as a public good but locally behaves as a private bad. This scenario imposes two problems: (i) finding a compensation that makes the project acceptable for the pre-determined host, and (ii) securing the budget to pay for the project and the required compensation. We use a market-like mechanism with two useful properties for this scenario: players can either contribute or request subsidies to fund the public project, and players have veto power over the desired project quantity. In our game, two players benefit from a waste incinerator facility, whereas the third group member, the host, is harmed if the facility is too large. We analyze the efficiency and the re-distributive potential of this mechanism, with and without communication, among group members. We find that the probability of positive provision did not differ with and without communication. However, average provided quantities with respect to the efficient quantity increased from 54% to 81% with communication. We also find that contributions fell below the Lindahl taxes, allowing the players who benefit from a larger facility to accrue most of the efficiency gains. The latter result is consistent with the infrequent evidence of veto threats as a bargaining strategy.

scholarly journals Walk the Talk? The Effect of Voting and Excludability in Public Goods Experiments

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Czap ◽  
Natalia V. Czap ◽  
Esmail Bonakdarian
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Public Project ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Projects ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Other Regarding

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of voting and excludability on individual contributions to group projects. We conducted two experiments on excludable and nonexcludable public goods, which provided several important results. First, contrary to our expectations, subjects are generally contributing more to the non-excludable compared to the excludable public good. Second, participating in a vote to choose a public project per se makes no difference in contributions. However, if the project that the individual voted for also gets selected by the group, they contribute significantly more to that project. Third, empathy and locus of control are important driving forces of participation in common projects. Our results have implications on the procedural design of obtaining funding for public projects. First, the public should get involved and have a say in the determination of which project should be realized. Second, it might well pay off to attempt to develop a consensus among the population and obtain near unanimous votes, because in our experiment, subjects discriminate between the project they voted for and the project chosen by the majority. Third, the policy proposers should stress the other-regarding interest of the public good rather than just pecuniary incentives.

scholarly journals Decisions on Extending Group Membership—Evidence from a Public Good Experiment

Games ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Christian Grund ◽  
Christine Harbring ◽  
Kirsten Thommes ◽  
Katja Rebecca Tilkes
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Public Good Experiment ◽  
Group Cooperation ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Good Experiment ◽  
Random Draw ◽  
Decision Mechanisms ◽  
Group Member

We experimentally compare the consequences for group cooperation of two decision mechanisms involving the extension of group membership. We analyze an exogenous decision (random draw) and an endogenous decision (made by a particular group member) mechanism to extend a temporary agent’s group membership. Our results reveal that the prospect of group membership extension affects not only the temporary but also the permanent group members’ contributions with an endogenous mechanism.

scholarly journals Prescriptive Norms and Social Comparisons

Games ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Moti Michaeli ◽  
Daniel Spiro
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Multiple Equilibria ◽  
Social Comparisons ◽  
The Other ◽  
Unique Equilibrium ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third

This paper analyzes the equilibrium strength of prescriptive norms to contribute to public goods. We consider three methods of establishing what an acceptable contribution to the public good is. Under the first method, the contribution of the bottom contributor is the reference point by which the comparison is being made; under the second, the median contribution is the reference point; and under the third the top contribution is the reference. The first method results in a unique equilibrium and the reference contribution is endogenously low. Each of the latter two methods allows for multiple equilibria differing in contributions made and thus in the strength of the norm to contribute. Comparing the methods we show that the median reference allows for the highest equilibrium contributions and welfare of all methods hence is the preferred method if, among the multiple equilibria, the best one can be selected. However, the bottom-reference is the maximin method, i.e., it provides safe minimal aggregate contribution and welfare that surpass the worst outcome in the other two methods.

scholarly journals Common Knowledge Promotes Cooperation in the Threshold Public Goods Game by Reducing Uncertainty

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Deutchman ◽  
Dorsa Amir ◽  
Katherine McAuliffe ◽  
Matthew Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
The Public ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Threshold Public Goods

Recent work suggests that an important cognitive mechanism promoting coordination is common knowledge—a heuristic for representing recursive mental states. Yet, we know little about how common knowledge promotes coordination. We propose that common knowledge increases coordination by reducing uncertainty about others’ cooperative behavior. We examine how common knowledge increases cooperation in the context of a threshold public goods game, a public good game in which a minimum level of contribution—a threshold—is required. Across two preregistered studies (N = 4,111), we explored how varying (1) the information participants had regarding what their group members knew about the threshold and (2) the threshold level affected contributions. We found that participants were more likely to contribute to the public good when there was common knowledge of the threshold than private knowledge. Using structural equation modeling, we found that the predicted number of group members contributing to the public good and certainty about the predicted number of contributors mediated the effect of information condition on contributions. Our results suggest that common knowledge of the threshold increases public good contributions by reducing uncertainty around other people’s cooperative behavior. These findings point to the influential role of common knowledge in helping to solve large-scale cooperation problems.

scholarly journals Adam Smith and the Theory of Punishment

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Stalley
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Justification Of Punishment ◽  
The Many

A distinctive theory of punishment plays a central role in Smith's moral and legal theory. According to this theory, we regard the punishment of a crime as deserved only to the extent that an impartial spectator would go along with the actual or supposed resentment of the victim. The first part of this paper argues that Smith's theory deserves serious consideration and relates it to other theories such as utilitarianism and more orthodox forms of retributivism. The second part considers the objection that, because Smith's theory implies that punishment is justified only when there is some person or persons who is the victim of the crime, it cannot explain the many cases where punishment is imposed purely for the public good. It is argued that Smith's theory could be extended to cover such cases. The third part defends Smith's theory against the objection that, because it relies on our natural feelings, it cannot provide an adequate moral justification of punishment.

scholarly journals Cooperation and the common good

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1687) ◽  
pp. 20150086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rufus A. Johnstone ◽  
António M. M. Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Resource Competition ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private Goods ◽  
The Public ◽  
Marginal Costs ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Common ◽  
Returns On Investment

In this paper, we draw the attention of biologists to a result from the economic literature, which suggests that when individuals are engaged in a communal activity of benefit to all, selection may favour cooperative sharing of resources even among non-relatives. Provided that group members all invest some resources in the public good, they should refrain from conflict over the division of these resources. The reason is that, given diminishing returns on investment in public and private goods, claiming (or ceding) a greater share of total resources only leads to the actor (or its competitors) investing more in the public good, such that the marginal costs and benefits of investment remain in balance. This cancels out any individual benefits of resource competition. We illustrate how this idea may be applied in the context of biparental care, using a sequential game in which parents first compete with one another over resources, and then choose how to allocate the resources they each obtain to care of their joint young (public good) versus their own survival and future reproductive success (private good). We show that when the two parents both invest in care to some extent, they should refrain from any conflict over the division of resources. The same effect can also support asymmetric outcomes in which one parent competes for resources and invests in care, whereas the other does not invest but refrains from competition. The fact that the caring parent gains higher fitness pay-offs at these equilibria suggests that abandoning a partner is not always to the latter's detriment, when the potential for resource competition is taken into account, but may instead be of benefit to the ‘abandoned’ mate.

scholarly journals The Effect of Disclosing Identities in a Socially Incentivized Public Good Game

Games ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Britta Butz ◽  
Christine Harbring
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Public Good Game ◽  
Previous Evidence ◽  
Charitable Donations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Identity Disclosure ◽  
Parametric Statistics ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Non Parametric

We investigate whether revealing the identities in a public good game that includes a donation incentive leads to higher contributions to the public good. Previous evidence suggests that contributions to a public good increase significantly when these take place in public. Also, the amount of money given in charitable donations seems to be sensitive to the revealing of identities. Using a laboratory experiment, we implement a 20% donation share that is dependent on participants’ contributions to a public good. The donation is either costless (because it is financed by the experimenter) or deducted from a team’s contributions. In both settings, we explore whether informing participants that group members’ identities will be disclosed at the end of the experiment leads to higher contributions to the public good. Non-parametric statistics indicate that when donations are costly for the participants, the announcement of subsequent identity disclosure results in significantly higher contributions in the second half of the repeated public good game. In contrast, revealing identities in settings with costless donations reduces contributions to the public good significantly. The regression results indicate that conditional cooperators might be one subgroup driving these results.

Positional Commitments and the Public Good: Perceptions of a Defecting Group Leader

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark E. Sibicky ◽  
Cortney B. Richardson ◽  
Anna M. Gruntz ◽  
Timothy J. Binegar ◽  
David A. Schroeder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Group Leader ◽  
The Public
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