Competition, Information and Cooperation

We inquire experimentally whether rivalry induced by competition has any impact on the individual voluntary contribution to a public good. Participants perform a task and are remunerated according to two schemes, a noncompetitive and a competitive one, then they play a standard public goods game. In the first scheme participants earn a flat remuneration, in the latter they are ranked according to their performance and remunerated accordingly. Information about ranking and income, before the game is played, varies across three different treatments. We find that competition per se does not affect the amount of contribution. The time spent to choose how much to contribute is negatively correlated with the decision of cooperating fully. The main result is that full information about the relative performance in the competitive environment enhances cooperation, while partial information reduces it.