IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uea/wcbess/20-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The sophistication of conditional cooperators: Evidence from public goods games

Author

Listed:
  • Francesco Fallucchi

    (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER))

  • R. Andrew Luccasen III

    (Mississippi University for Women.)

  • Theodore L. Turocy

    (School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich.)

Abstract

Experiments which elicit preferences for conditional cooperation in public goods games with linear payoffs find that about one-quarter of people approximately match the average contributions of others. To identify from among possible explanations proposed for this strong form of conditional cooperation, we extend the elicitation method of Fischbacher et al. (2001) and study voluntary contributions games with a broader range of economic and strategic incentives. We find that most strong conditional cooperators are sophisticated in responding to these incentives, by matching contributions only when doing so leads to an overall welfare improvement. Our data favour an account of conditional cooperation based on social norm compliance, and are not consistent with accounts in which these people are motivated by inequity aversion or warm-glow giving, or are confused about the economic incentives presented by the elicitation mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesco Fallucchi & R. Andrew Luccasen III & Theodore L. Turocy, 2020. "The sophistication of conditional cooperators: Evidence from public goods games," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 20-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    • Handle: RePEc:uea:wcbess:20-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/cbess/UEA-CBESS-20-01.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    2. Sefton, Martin & Steinberg, Richard, 1996. "Reward structures in public good experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 263-287, August.
    3. Jan Potters & Sigrid Suetens, 2009. "Cooperation in Experimental Games of Strategic Complements and Substitutes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(3), pages 1125-1147.
    4. Harbaugh, William T & Krause, Kate, 2000. "Children's Altruism in Public Good and Dictator Experiments," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 95-109, January.
    5. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gächter, Simon & Hennig-Schmidt, Heike, 2011. "The framing of games and the psychology of play," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 459-478.
    6. Fischbacher, Urs & Gächter, Simon & Quercia, Simone, 2012. "The behavioral validity of the strategy method in public good experiments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 897-913.
    7. Francesco Fallucchi & R. Andrew Luccasen & Theodore L. Turocy, 2019. "Identifying discrete behavioural types: a re-analysis of public goods game contributions by hierarchical clustering," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(2), pages 238-254, December.
    8. Robin Cubitt & Michalis Drouvelis & Simon Gächter, 2011. "Framing and free riding: emotional responses and punishment in social dilemma games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(2), pages 254-272, May.
    9. Chan, Kenneth S. & Godby, Rob & Mestelman, Stuart & Andrew Muller, R., 2002. "Crowding-out voluntary contributions to public goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 305-317, July.
    10. Gronberg, Timothy J. & Luccasen, R. Andrew & Turocy, Theodore L. & Van Huyck, John B., 2012. "Are tax-financed contributions to a public good completely crowded-out? Experimental evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(7-8), pages 596-603.
    11. Barr, Abigail & Lane, Tom & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2018. "On the social inappropriateness of discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 153-164.
    12. Fischbacher, Urs & Gachter, Simon & Fehr, Ernst, 2001. "Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 397-404, June.
    13. Olli Lappalainen, 2018. "Cooperation and Strategic Complementarity: An Experiment with Two Voluntary Contribution Mechanism Games with Interior Equilibria," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-24, July.
    14. Adrian Bruhin & Ernst Fehr & Daniel Schunk, 2019. "The many Faces of Human Sociality: Uncovering the Distribution and Stability of Social Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1025-1069.
    15. Mermer, Ayşe Gül & Müller, Wieland & Suetens, Sigrid, 2021. "Cooperation in infinitely repeated games of strategic complements and substitutes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1191-1205.
    16. Keser, Claudia, 1996. "Voluntary contributions to a public good when partial contribution is a dominant strategy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 359-366, March.
    17. Andreoni, James, 1993. "An Experimental Test of the Public-Goods Crowding-Out Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1317-1327, December.
    18. Ernst Fehr & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2005. "Individual Irrationality and Aggregate Outcomes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 43-66, Fall.
    19. Urs Fischbacher & Simon Gachter, 2010. "Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 541-556, March.
    20. Ralph-C. Bayer & Elke Renner & Rupert Sausgruber, 2013. "Confusion and learning in the voluntary contributions game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(4), pages 478-496, December.
    21. Andreoni, James, 1989. "Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1447-1458, December.
    22. James C. Cox & Elinor Ostrom & Vjollca Sadiraj & James M. Walker, 2013. "Provision versus Appropriation in Symmetric and Asymmetric Social Dilemmas," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 496-512, January.
    23. Cox, Caleb & Korenok, Oleg & Millner, Edward & Razzolini, Laura, 2018. "Giving, taking, earned money, and cooperation in public good games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 211-213.
    24. Blanco, Mariana & Engelmann, Dirk & Normann, Hans Theo, 2011. "A within-subject analysis of other-regarding preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 321-338, June.
    25. Willinger, Marc & Ziegelmeyer, Anthony, 1999. "Framing and cooperation in public good games: an experiment with an interior solution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 323-328, December.
    26. Thöni, Christian & Volk, Stefan, 2018. "Conditional cooperation: Review and refinement," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 37-40.
    27. Daniel Zizzo, 2010. "Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(1), pages 75-98, March.
    28. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    29. 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.
    30. Kölle, Felix & Gächter, Simon & Quercia, Simone, 2014. "The ABC of Cooperation in Voluntary Contribution and Common Pool Extraction Games," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100417, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    31. Ernst Fehr & Ivo Schurtenberger, 2018. "Normative foundations of human cooperation," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(7), pages 458-468, July.
    32. James C. Cox & Elinor Ostrom & Vjollca Sadiraj & James M. Walker, 2013. "Provision versus Appropriation in Symmetric and Asymmetric Social Dilemmas," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 496-512, January.
    33. Maria Bigoni & Stefania Bortolotti & Marco Casari & Diego Gambetta & Francesca Pancotto, 2016. "Amoral Familism, Social Capital, or Trust? The Behavioural Foundations of the Italian North–South Divide," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(594), pages 1318-1341, August.
    34. Elster, Jon, 1989. "Social Norms and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 99-117, Fall.
    35. Menusch Khadjavi & Andreas Lange, 2015. "Doing good or doing harm: experimental evidence on giving and taking in public good games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 432-441, September.
    36. Bock, Olaf & Baetge, Ingmar & Nicklisch, Andreas, 2014. "hroot: Hamburg Registration and Organization Online Tool," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 117-120.
    37. Bardsley, Nicholas & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2005. "Conformity and reciprocity in public good provision," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 664-681, October.
    38. David C. Kingsley, 2015. "Peer punishment across payoff equivalent public good and common pool resource experiments," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(2), pages 197-204, December.
    39. Sugden, Robert, 1984. "Reciprocity: The Supply of Public Goods through Voluntary Contributions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376), pages 772-787, December.
    40. Cox, Caleb A., 2015. "Decomposing the effects of negative framing in linear public goods games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 63-65.
    41. Timothy Cason & Lata Gangadharan, 2015. "Promoting cooperation in nonlinear social dilemmas through peer punishment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(1), pages 66-88, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Francesco Fallucchi & R. Andrew Luccasen & Theodore L. Turocy, 2019. "Identifying discrete behavioural types: a re-analysis of public goods game contributions by hierarchical clustering," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(2), pages 238-254, December.
    2. Bruhin, Adrian & Janizzi, Kelly & Thöni, Christian, 2020. "Uncovering the heterogeneity behind cross-cultural variation in antisocial punishment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 291-308.

    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. Gächter, Simon & Kölle, Felix & Quercia, Simone, 2022. "Preferences and perceptions in Provision and Maintenance public goods," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 338-355.
    2. Baader, Malte & Gächter, Simon & Lee, Kyeongtae & Sefton, Martin, 2022. "Social Preferences and the Variability of Conditional Cooperation," IZA Discussion Papers 15523, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Kölle, Felix & Gächter, Simon & Quercia, Simone, 2014. "The ABC of Cooperation in Voluntary Contribution and Common Pool Extraction Games," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100417, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Martinsson, Peter & Medhin, Haileselassie & Persson, Emil, 2016. "Framing and Minimum Levels in Public Good Provision," Working Papers in Economics 656, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    5. Kölle, Felix & Quercia, Simone, 2021. "The influence of empirical and normative expectations on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 691-703.
    6. Antonio Filippin & Manuela Raimondi, 2018. "The Patron Game: the Individual Provision of a Public Good," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-20, June.
    7. Gerrit Frackenpohl & Adrian Hillenbrand & Sebastian Kube, 2016. "Leadership effectiveness and institutional frames," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 842-863, December.
    8. Antoni Bosch-Domènech & Joaquim Silvestre, 2017. "The role of frames, numbers and risk in the frequency of cooperation," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 64(3), pages 245-267, September.
    9. Gächter, Simon & Renner, Elke, 2018. "Leaders as role models and ‘belief managers’ in social dilemmas," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 321-334.
    10. Weber, Till O. & Schulz, Jonathan F. & Beranek, Benjamin & Lambarraa-Lehnhardt, Fatima & Gächter, Simon, 2023. "The behavioral mechanisms of voluntary cooperation across culturally diverse societies: Evidence from the US, the UK, Morocco, and Turkey," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 134-152.
    11. Ramalingam, Abhijit & Morales, Antonio J. & Walker, James M., 2019. "Peer punishment of acts of omission versus acts of commission in give and take social dilemmas," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 133-147.
    12. Wolff, Irenaeus, 2022. "Predicting Voluntary Contributions by `Revealed-Preference Nash-Equilibrium'," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264072, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Dominique Cappelletti & Werner Güth & Matteo Ploner, 2011. "Unravelling conditional cooperation - Reciprocity, inequity aversion, and anchoring in public goods provision," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-047, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    14. Felix Kölle & Thomas Lauer, 2020. "Understanding Cooperation in an Intertemporal Context," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 046, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    15. Desmet, Pieter T.M. & Engel, Christoph, 2021. "People are conditional rule followers," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    16. Gronberg, Timothy J. & Luccasen, R. Andrew & Turocy, Theodore L. & Van Huyck, John B., 2012. "Are tax-financed contributions to a public good completely crowded-out? Experimental evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(7-8), pages 596-603.
    17. Traub, Stefan & Schwaninger, Manuel & Paetzel, Fabian & Neuhofer, Sabine, 2023. "Evidence on need-sensitive giving behavior: An experimental approach to the acknowledgment of needs," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    18. Hartig, Björn & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Kölle, Felix, 2015. "Conditioning on what? Heterogeneous contributions and conditional cooperation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 48-64.
    19. Kim, Jeongbin & Putterman, Louis & Zhang, Xinyi, 2022. "Trust, Beliefs and Cooperation: Excavating a Foundation of Strong Economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    20. Aurélie Dariel, 2018. "Conditional Cooperation and Framing Effects," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-12, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public goods; conditional cooperation; sophistication; experiment.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:uea:wcbess:20-01. 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: Cara Liggins (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esueauk.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.