Selective exposure reduces voluntary contributions: Experimental evidence from the German Internet Panel

Can strategic information acquisition harm the provision of a public good? We investigate this question in an incentivized online experiment with a large sample of the German population. The marginal returns of the public good are uncertain: it is either socially efficient to contribute or not. In the information treatment, participants can choose between two information sources with opposite biases: one source is more likely to report low marginal returns, whereas the other is more likely to report high marginal returns. We find that information avoidance is a minor phenomenon. Most participants select the source biased towards reporting low marginal returns, independent of their prior beliefs. As a result, the information treatment reduces contributions and increases free-riding. We find that social preferences guide information acquisition: selfish participants are less likely to acquire information, and if they acquire information, they are more likely to select the source biased towards reporting high marginal returns.