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Group (Re-) formation in public good games: The tale of the bad apple?

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  • Grund, Christian
  • Harbring, Christine
  • Thommes, Kirsten

Abstract

We analyze how different previous roles as partners or strangers in public good games affect an individual’s subsequent cooperation in a partner setting. We systematically vary a group’s composition from all individuals being partner over blended groups of partners and strangers to all individuals being stranger in each round. We want to explore how individuals’ past experiences in blended groups of partners and strangers affect cooperation in newly formed groups with permanent members only. Our results show that previous group composition does not affect cooperation in the subsequent partner setting with one exception: Groups cooperate significantly less compared to all other settings, when one stranger entered the group. We further analyze this situation in-depth and find that only in a setting with one stranger a reaction chain based on negative reciprocity results in low contributions in the subsequent setting. Partners falsely attribute low cooperation levels to partners formerly assigned the role of a stranger. We conduct additional treatments to back up this result and to show how information about the stranger can prevent such an error.

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  • Grund, Christian & Harbring, Christine & Thommes, Kirsten, 2018. "Group (Re-) formation in public good games: The tale of the bad apple?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 306-319.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:145:y:2018:i:c:p:306-319
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.11.009
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    Cited by:

    1. Pietro Battiston & Simona Gamba & Matteo Rizzolli & Valentina Rotondi, 2018. "What exactly is public in a public good game? A lab-in-the-field experiment," Working Papers 125, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    2. Angelova, Vera & Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2019. "Leadership in a Public Goods Experiment with Permanent and Temporary Members," IHS Working Paper Series 10, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    3. Nicholas Sabin, 2023. "Choosing partners: selection priorities of joint liability group leaders," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 323-348, January.
    4. Jan Schmitz, 2019. "When Two Become One: How Group Mergers Affect Solidarity," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-42, July.
    5. Christian Grund & Christine Harbring & Kirsten Thommes & Katja Rebecca Tilkes, 2020. "Decisions on Extending Group Membership—Evidence from a Public Good Experiment," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-27, December.
    6. Angelovski, Andrej & Di Cagno, Daniela & Güth, Werner & Marazzi, Francesca & Panaccione, Luca, 2018. "Does heterogeneity spoil the basket? The role of productivity and feedback information on public good provision," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 40-49.
    7. Kusterer, David J. & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2020. "Public goods, property rights, and investment incentives: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 514-532.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cooperation; Public-good games; Teamwork; Group membership; Temporary employment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics

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