IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0813.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

All it takes is one: The effect of weakest-link and summation aggregation on public good provision under threshold uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Carlsson, Fredrik

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Ek, Claes

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Lange, Andreas

    (University of Hamburg)

Abstract

We report experimental evidence on the voluntary provision of public goods under threshold uncertainty. By explicitly comparing two prominent technologies, summation and weakest link, we show that uncertainty is particularly detrimental to threshold attainment under weakest link, where low contributions by one subject cannot be compensated by others. In contrast, threshold uncertainty does not affect contributions under summation. We demonstrate non-binding pledges as one mechanism to improve chances of threshold attainment under both technologies, yet in particular under weakest link.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlsson, Fredrik & Ek, Claes & Lange, Andreas, 2021. "All it takes is one: The effect of weakest-link and summation aggregation on public good provision under threshold uncertainty," Working Papers in Economics 813, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0813
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/70177
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jordi Brandts & David J. Cooper, 2007. "It's What You Say, Not What You Pay: An Experimental Study of Manager–Employee Relationships in Overcoming Coordination Failure," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(6), pages 1223-1268, December.
    2. Lei, Vivian & Tucker, Steven & Vesely, Filip, 2007. "Foreign aid and weakest-link international public goods: An experimental study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 599-623, April.
    3. Scott Barrett & Astrid Dannenberg, 2014. "On the Sensitivity of Collective Action to Uncertainty about Climate Tipping Points," CESifo Working Paper Series 4643, CESifo.
    4. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    5. Bochet, Olivier & Page, Talbot & Putterman, Louis, 2006. "Communication and punishment in voluntary contribution experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 11-26, May.
    6. Riechmann, Thomas & Weimann, Joachim, 2008. "Competition as a coordination device: Experimental evidence from a minimum effort coordination game," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 437-454, June.
    7. Arno Riedl & Ingrid M. T. Rohde & Martin Strobel, 2016. "Efficient Coordination in Weakest-Link Games," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 83(2), pages 737-767.
    8. Koji Kotani & Kenta Tanaka & Shunsuke Managi, 2014. "Cooperative choice and its framing effect under threshold uncertainty in a provision point mechanism," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 329-353, November.
    9. Cornes, Richard & Hartley, Roger, 2007. "Weak links, good shots and other public good games: Building on BBV," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1684-1707, September.
    10. Alejandro Caparrós & Esther Blanco & Philipp Buchenauer & Michael Finus, 2020. "Team Formation in Coordination Games with Fixed Neighborhoods," Working Papers 2004, Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos (IPP), CSIC.
    11. Ananish Chaudhuri & Andrew Schotter & Barry Sopher, 2009. "Talking Ourselves to Efficiency: Coordination in Inter‐Generational Minimum Effort Games with Private, Almost Common and Common Knowledge of Advice," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 91-122, January.
    12. Alejandro Caparrós & Michael Finus, 2020. "Public good agreements under the weakest‐link technology," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(3), pages 555-582, June.
    13. Stefano Barbieri & David A. Malueg, 2019. "On the voluntary provision of “weakest‐link” public goods: The case of private information," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(5), pages 866-894, October.
    14. Anderson, Simon P. & Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A., 2001. "Minimum-Effort Coordination Games: Stochastic Potential and Logit Equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 177-199, February.
    15. Harrison, Glenn W & Hirshleifer, Jack, 1989. "An Experimental Evaluation of Weakest Link/Best Shot Models of Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 201-225, February.
    16. Dirk Engelmann & Hans-Theo Normann, 2010. "Maximum effort in the minimum-effort game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(3), pages 249-259, September.
    17. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    18. Scott Barrett & Astrid Dannenberg, 2016. "An experimental investigation into ‘pledge and review’ in climate negotiations," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 339-351, September.
    19. John Hamman & Scott Rick & Roberto Weber, 2007. "Solving coordination failure with “all-or-none” group-level incentives," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 285-303, September.
    20. Barrett, Scott, 2013. "Climate treaties and approaching catastrophes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 235-250.
    21. Marc Knez & Colin Camerer, 1994. "Creating Expectational Assets in the Laboratory: Coordination in ‘Weakest‐Link’ Games," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(S1), pages 101-119, December.
    22. Scott Barrett & Astrid Dannenberg, 2014. "Sensitivity of collective action to uncertainty about climate tipping points," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 36-39, January.
    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. Maoliang Ye & Jie Zheng & Plamen Nikolov & Sam Asher, 2020. "One Step at a Time: Does Gradualism Build Coordination?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 113-129, January.
    2. Arno Riedl & Ingrid M. T. Rohde & Martin Strobel, 2016. "Efficient Coordination in Weakest-Link Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 737-767.
    3. Alejandro Caparrós & Esther Blanco & Philipp Buchenauer & Michael Finus, 2020. "Team Formation in Coordination Games with Fixed Neighborhoods," Working Papers 2004, Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos (IPP), CSIC.
    4. Fehr, Dietmar, 2017. "Costly communication and learning from failure in organizational coordination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 106-122.
    5. Alejandro Caparrós & Michael Finus, 2020. "The Corona-Pandemic: A Game-Theoretic Perspective on Regional and Global Governance," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 913-927, August.
    6. Kriss, Peter H. & Blume, Andreas & Weber, Roberto A., 2016. "Coordination with decentralized costly communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 225-241.
    7. Feri, Francesco & Gantner, Anita & Moffatt, Peter G. & Erharter, Dominik, 2022. "Leading to efficient coordination: Individual traits, beliefs and choices in the minimum effort game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 403-427.
    8. Mathieu Lefebvre & Lucie Martin-Bonnel de Longchamp, 2022. "Knowledge acquisition or incentive to foster coordination? A real-effort weak-link experiment with craftsmen," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 6(S1), pages 93-107, July.
    9. Ahrens, Steffen & Bitter, Lea & Bosch-Rosa, Ciril, 2023. "Coordination under loss contracts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 270-293.
    10. Yoshio Kamijo & Hiroki Ozono & Kazumi Shimizu, 2016. "Overcoming coordination failure using a mechanism based on gradualism and endogeneity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 202-217, March.
    11. Lu Dong & Maria Montero & Alex Possajennikov, 2018. "Communication, leadership and coordination failure," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(4), pages 557-584, June.
    12. Dietrichson, Jens & Gudmundsson, Jens & Jochem, Torsten, 2014. "Let's Talk It Over: Communication and Coordination in Teams," Working Papers 2014:2, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 18 Apr 2018.
    13. Dietrichson, Jens & Jochem, Torsten, 2014. "Organizational coordination and costly communication with boundedly rational agents," Comparative Institutional Analysis Working Paper Series 2014:1, Lund University, Comparative Institutional Analysis, School of Economics and Management.
    14. David Smerdon & Theo Offerman & Uri Gneezy, 2020. "‘Everybody’s doing it’: on the persistence of bad social norms," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 392-420, June.
    15. Andreas Blume, 2011. "The Dog That Did Not Bark: Pre-Play Communication with Foregone Costly Messages," Working Paper 438, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jan 2011.
    16. Manja Gärtner & Robert Östling & Sebastian Tebbe, 2023. "Do we all coordinate in the long run?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(1), pages 16-33, June.
    17. Andreas Blume & Peter H. Kriss & Roberto A. Weber, 2017. "Pre-play communication with forgone costly messages: experimental evidence on forward induction," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(2), pages 368-395, June.
    18. Dietmar Fehr, 2011. "The Persistence of "Bad" Precedents and the Need for Communication: A Coordination Experiment," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2011-039, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    19. Edward Cartwright & Joris Gillet & Mark Van Vugt, 2013. "Leadership By Example In The Weak-Link Game," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(4), pages 2028-2043, October.
    20. David M. McEvoy & Tobias Haller & Esther Blanco, 2022. "The Role of Non-Binding Pledges in Social Dilemmas with Mitigation and Adaptation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(4), pages 685-710, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public goods; threshold uncertainty; weakest link; coordination; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:gunwpe:0813. 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: Ann-Christin Räätäri Nyström (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.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.