The Effects of Global and Local Heterogeneity on Cooperation in Multi-Level Public Goods: Experimental Evidence

Using an artefactual field experiment in a bilingual Swiss state with participants speaking different languages, this paper investigates how both heterogeneity and majority and minority statuses influence cooperation in a repeated multiple-level public good game in which participants can simultaneously contribute to a global good and local goods. Heterogeneity is based on language by using two native groups, German and French speakers, as our subject pool. We find that group heterogeneity has a negative effect on cooperation, which is mainly driven by a decrease in contributions to local public goods while contributions to the global good are not affected. The lower contributions to the local goods in the heterogeneous treatments are mainly due to lower contributions by majority members while the minority members contribute similar amounts to the reference group or even more. Finally, we observe that the impact of heterogeneity on contributions is magnified for individuals who are members of a linguistic minority in their real life. Our article has implications for managerial and public policy, highlighting the fact that global heterogeneity can affect cooperation behaviors in local groups, even when these are homogeneous. Furthermore, policy-makers should address majority members' concern to avoid lower levels of cooperation.