IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jpbect/v8y2006i4p503-528.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Getting the Ball Rolling: Voluntary Contributions to a Large‐Scale Public Project

Author

Listed:
  • HUSEYIN YILDIRIM

Abstract

This paper examines dynamic voluntary contributions to a large‐scale project. In equilibrium, contributions are influenced by the interplay of two opposing incentives. While agents prefer to free ride on others for contributions, they also prefer to encourage others to contribute by increasing their own. Main findings of the paper are that (1) agents increase their contributions as the project moves forward; (2) as additional agents join the group, existing agents increase their contributions in the initial stages of the project while reducing them in the stages close to completion; (3) groups that are formed by more patient agents and that undertake larger projects tend to be larger; and (4) groups that rely on voluntary contributions tend to be too small compared to the social optimum. The empirical evidence on contributions to open‐source software projects provides partial support for these findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Huseyin Yildirim, 2006. "Getting the Ball Rolling: Voluntary Contributions to a Large‐Scale Public Project," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(4), pages 503-528, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:8:y:2006:i:4:p:503-528
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9779.2006.00275.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2006.00275.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2006.00275.x?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
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matros, Alexander & Ponomareva, Natalia & Smirnov, Vladimir & Wait, Andrew, 2022. "Search without looking," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Matros, Alexander & Smirnov, Vladimir, 2016. "Duplicative search," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-22.
    3. T. Renee Bowen & George Georgiadis & Nicolas S. Lambert, 2019. "Collective Choice in Dynamic Public Good Provision," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 243-298, February.
    4. Doruk Cetemen & Can Urgun & Leeat Yariv, 2023. "Collective Progress: Dynamics of Exit Waves," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(9), pages 2402-2450.
    5. Steven A. Matthews, 2008. "Achievable Outcomes of Dynamic Contribution Games, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 11-016, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 20 Jun 2011.
    6. Matros, Alexander & Ponomareva, Natalia & Smirnov, Vladimir & Wait, Andrew, 2019. "Search without observability," Working Papers 2019-04, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    7. Wioletta Dziuda & Ronen Gradwohl, 2015. "Achieving Cooperation under Privacy Concerns," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 142-173, August.
    8. George Georgiadis & Steven A. Lippman & Christopher S. Tang, 2014. "Project design with limited commitment and teams," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(3), pages 598-623, September.
    9. John P. Conley & Fan‐Chin Kung, 2010. "Private Benefits, Warm Glow, and Reputation in the Free and Open Source Software Production Model," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(4), pages 665-689, August.
    10. Georgiadis, George, 2017. "Deadlines and infrequent monitoring in the dynamic provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 1-12.
    11. Saltuk Özerturk & Huseyin Yildirim, 2019. "Credit Attribution and Collaborative Work," Departmental Working Papers 1907, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
    12. Bowen, T. Renee & Georgiadis, George & Lambert, Nicolas S., 2015. "Collective Choice in Dynamic Public Good Provision: Real versus Formal Authority," Research Papers 3346, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    13. Cetemen, Doruk & Hwang, Ilwoo & Kaya, Ayça, 2020. "Uncertainty-driven cooperation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(3), July.
    14. Xiang Yu & Yuchong Zhang & Zhou Zhou, 2020. "Teamwise Mean Field Competitions," Papers 2006.14472, arXiv.org, revised May 2021.
    15. , A., 2013. "Achievable outcomes of dynamic contribution games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), May.
    16. Ozerturk, Saltuk & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2021. "Credit attribution and collaborative work," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    17. Bose, Arup & Pal, Debashis & Sappington, David E.M., 2010. "Asymmetric treatment of identical agents in teams," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 947-961, October.
    18. Steven A. Matthews, 2008. "Achievable Outcomes in Smooth Dynamic Contribution Games," PIER Working Paper Archive 08-028, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    19. Paul Pecorino & Akram Temimi, 2008. "The Group Size Paradox Revisited," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(5), pages 785-799, October.
    20. de Roos, Nicolas & Matros, Alexander & Smirnov, Vladimir & Wait, Andrew, 2018. "Shipwrecks and treasure hunters," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 259-283.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bla:jpbect:v:8:y:2006:i:4:p:503-528. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/apettea.html .

    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.