IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v9y1997i3p307-326.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Action Versus Voluntarism In Social Dilemmas And Aid For The Needy

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Baron

Abstract

Concerned citizens have two responses to situations that require sacrifice for the greater good, such as social dilemmas or provision of aid for the needy. One is voluntary sacrifice. The other is to take political action, in order to change the rules so that others will sacrifice in the same way. For a somewhat selfish and rational utilitarian, under specified assumptions, I show that political action is sometimes worthwhile and superior to voluntarism. This situation is more likely to obtain when the actor is moderately selfish (as opposed to being totally selfish or unselfish), and when: cost of political action is low; cost of cooperation is high; the situation involves aid for the needy and the proportion of potential beneficiaries is large; variability in willingness to cooperate is low; some people are already cooperating, but not too many; or the benefit/cost ratio of contributing increases with the number of contributors.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Baron, 1997. "Political Action Versus Voluntarism In Social Dilemmas And Aid For The Needy," Rationality and Society, , vol. 9(3), pages 307-326, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:9:y:1997:i:3:p:307-326
    DOI: 10.1177/104346397009003003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/104346397009003003
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/104346397009003003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coate, Stephen, 1995. "Altruism, the Samaritan's Dilemma, and Government Transfer Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 46-57, March.
    2. Baron, Jonathan, 1996. "Norm-Endorsement Utilitarianism and the Nature of Utility," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 165-182, October.
    3. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    4. Douglas D. Heckathorn, 1989. "Collective Action and the Second-Order Free-Rider Problem," Rationality and Society, , vol. 1(1), pages 78-100, July.
    5. Dawes, Robyn M. & Orbell, John M. & Simmons, Randy T. & Van De Kragt, Alphons J. C., 1986. "Organizing Groups for Collective Action," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1171-1185, December.
    6. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miklós Antal & Ardjan Gazheli & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2012. "Behavioural Foundations of Sustainability Transitions. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 3," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46424, April.
    2. Panagiotis Andrikopoulos & Nick Webber, 2019. "Understanding time-inconsistent heterogeneous preferences in economics and finance: a practice theory approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 282(1), pages 3-26, November.
    3. Jürgen Huber & Laura Hueber & Daniel Kleinlercher & Thomas Stöckl, 2022. "Acceptance or rejection of welfare migration—an experimental investigation," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(11), pages 1-28, November.
    4. Obinna Onwujekwe & Benjamin Uzochukwu, 2004. "Stated and actual altruistic willingness to pay for insecticide‐treated nets in Nigeria: validity of open‐ended and binary with follow‐up questions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(5), pages 477-492, May.
    5. Alain Marciano, 2014. "Exploitation, Mutual Advantage and The Myth of the Samaritan's Dilemma," ICER Working Papers 10-2014, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    6. Griffiths, Barry, 2010. "Identification of Altruism among Team Members: Empirical Evidence from the Classroom and Laboratory," MPRA Paper 62208, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 13 Feb 2015.
    7. Croson, Rachel & Gächter, Simon, 2010. "The science of experimental economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 122-131, January.
    8. Nadia A. Streletskaya & Samuel D. Bell & Maik Kecinski & Tongzhe Li & Simanti Banerjee & Leah H. Palm‐Forster & David Pannell, 2020. "Agricultural Adoption and Behavioral Economics: Bridging the Gap," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(1), pages 54-66, March.
    9. repec:cup:judgdm:v:4:y:2009:i:5:p:363-384 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Cox, Caleb A. & Stoddard, Brock, 2018. "Strategic thinking in public goods games with teams," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 31-43.
    11. Stefano DellaVigna & Devin Pope, 2018. "What Motivates Effort? Evidence and Expert Forecasts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 1029-1069.
    12. Nguyen, Huy X., 2020. "Pretending volunteers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 261-278.
    13. Savage David A., 2016. "Surviving the Storm: Behavioural Economics in the Conflict Environment," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 22(2), pages 105-129, April.
    14. Mayo, John W. & Tinsley, Catherine H., 2009. "Warm glow and charitable giving: Why the wealthy do not give more to charity?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 490-499, June.
    15. Jona Linde & Joep Sonnemans, 2012. "Social Preferences in Private Decisions," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-003/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    16. Howard Kunreuther & Gabriel Silvasi & Eric T. Bradlow & Dylan Small, 2009. "Bayesian analysis of deterministic and stochastic prisoner's dilemma games," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 4(5), pages 363-384, August.
    17. Christine L. Exley, 2015. "Excusing Selfishness in Charitable Giving: The Role of Risk," Discussion Papers 15-013, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    18. Rachel T. A. Croson, 2007. "Theories Of Commitment, Altruism And Reciprocity: Evidence From Linear Public Goods Games," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(2), pages 199-216, April.
    19. Jörg Spiller & Friedel Bolle, 2017. "Experimental investigations of coordination games: high success rates, invariant behavior, and surprising dynamics," Discussion Paper Series RECAP15 28, RECAP15, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder).
    20. Frederiks, Elisha R. & Stenner, Karen & Hobman, Elizabeth V., 2015. "Household energy use: Applying behavioural economics to understand consumer decision-making and behaviour," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1385-1394.
    21. Bolle, Friedel & Spiller, Jörg, 2016. "Not efficient but payoff dominant: Experimental investigations of equilibrium play in binary threshold public good games," Discussion Papers 379, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:9:y:1997:i:3:p:307-326. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.