IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wil/wileco/2012-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Good of the Few: Reciprocity in the Provision of a Public Bad

Author

Abstract

People have been shown to engage in favor-trading when it is efficiency-enhancing to do so. Will they also trade favors when it reduces efficiency, as in a series of wasteful public projects that each benefits an individual? We introduce the "Stakeholder Public Bad" game to study this question. In each round, contributions to a common fund increase the earnings of one person (the "Stakeholder") but reduce the earnings of the rest of the group so much that overall efficiency is reduced. The Stakeholder position rotates through members of the group and the promise of the high reward associated with this position may enable subjects to behave reciprocally. We hypothesize that some people will help a current Stakeholder by contributing in hopes of being rewarded later with a reciprocal gift. In a lab experiment, we find evidence of such favor trading. We also find that Stakeholders in this situation seem perfectly willing to sacrifice the good of the group to reap their own personal rewards, and this is true even when their contribution decisions are public. While the revelation of information about others' actions and roles has previously been shown to enable efficiency-increasing reciprocity, we show that it also enables efficiency-decreasing reciprocal acts. Subjects who are more risk-averse behave in a way that is more myopically self-interested as compared to less risk-averse people when information conditions preclude favor trading, and subjects who identify with the Democratic Party show more restraint when they are Stakeholder than those who do not.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Jacobson & Jason Delaney, 2012. "The Good of the Few: Reciprocity in the Provision of a Public Bad," Department of Economics Working Papers 2012-02, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    • Handle: RePEc:wil:wileco:2012-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/DelaneyJacobsonGoodOfFew.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    2. James Andreoni, 1995. "Warm-Glow versus Cold-Prickle: The Effects of Positive and Negative Framing on Cooperation in Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 1-21.
    3. Ernesto Reuben & Arno Riedl, 2009. "Public Goods Provision and Sanctioning in Privileged Groups," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(1), pages 72-93, February.
    4. Ferraro, Paul J. & Rondeau, Daniel & Poe, Gregory L., 2003. "Detecting other-regarding behavior with virtual players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 99-109, May.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Georg Kirchsteiger & Arno Riedl, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 437-459.
    6. Jordi Brandts & David Cooper & Enrique Fatas, 2007. "Leadership and overcoming coordination failure with asymmetric costs," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 269-284, September.
    7. Andreas Glöckner & Bernd Irlenbusch & Sebastian Kube & Andreas Nicklisch & Hans‐Theo Normann, 2011. "Leading With(Out) Sacrifice? A Public‐Goods Experiment With A Privileged Player," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 591-597, April.
    8. Andreoni, James, 1995. "Cooperation in Public-Goods Experiments: Kindness or Confusion?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 891-904, September.
    9. Benyamin Shitovitz & Menahem Spiegel, 2003. "Cournot-Nash and Lindahl equilibria in pure public “bad” economies," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 22(1), pages 17-31, August.
    10. Abigail Barr & Danila Serra, 2009. "The effects of externalities and framing on bribery in a petty corruption experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(4), pages 488-503, December.
    11. John A. List, 2006. "The Behavioralist Meets the Market: Measuring Social Preferences and Reputation Effects in Actual Transactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-37, February.
    12. Ananish Chaudhuri, 2011. "Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: a selective survey of the literature," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(1), pages 47-83, March.
    13. Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg, 2004. "A theory of sequential reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 268-298, May.
    14. Daniel Houser & Robert Kurzban, 2002. "Revisiting Kindness and Confusion in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1062-1069, September.
    15. Cox, James C., 2004. "How to identify trust and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 260-281, February.
    16. Hilde Coffé & Catherine Bolzendahl, 2011. "Partisan Cleavages in the Importance of Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 92(3), pages 656-674, September.
    17. Marwell, Gerald & Ames, Ruth E., 1981. "Economists free ride, does anyone else? : Experiments on the provision of public goods, IV," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 295-310, June.
    18. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A. & Laury, Susan K., 2002. "Private costs and public benefits: unraveling the effects of altruism and noisy behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 255-276, February.
    19. Andreoni, James & Petrie, Ragan, 2004. "Public goods experiments without confidentiality: a glimpse into fund-raising," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1605-1623, July.
    20. Barr, Abigail & Serra, Danila, 2010. "Corruption and culture: An experimental analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 862-869, December.
    21. van der Heijden, E.C.M. & Moxnes, E., 2003. "Leading by Example? Investment Decisions in a Mixed Sequential-Simultaneous Public Bad Experiment," Discussion Paper 2003-38, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    22. Abbink, Klaus & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Renner, Elke, 2000. "The moonlighting game: An experimental study on reciprocity and retribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 265-277, June.
    23. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    24. Sonnemans, Joep & Schram, Arthur & Offerman, Theo, 1998. "Public good provision and public bad prevention: The effect of framing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 143-161, January.
    25. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    26. van der Heijden, E.C.M. & Moxnes, E., 2003. "Leading by Example? Investment Decisions in a Mixed Sequential-Simultaneous Public Bad Experiment," Other publications TiSEM 5ee6d610-b2c2-4c6b-a237-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    27. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    28. 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.
    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. Delaney, Jason & Jacobson, Sarah, 2015. "The good of the few: Reciprocal acts and the provision of a public bad," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 46-55.
    2. Delaney, Jason & Jacobson, Sarah, 2014. "Those outsiders: How downstream externalities affect public good provision," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 340-352.
    3. Sarah Jacobson & Ragan Petrie, 2010. "Favor Trading in Public Good Provision," Department of Economics Working Papers 2010-19, Department of Economics, Williams College, revised Apr 2013.
    4. Sarah Jacobson & Ragan Petrie, 2014. "Favor trading in public good provision," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(3), pages 439-460, September.
    5. 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.
    6. Engelmann, Dirk & Fischbacher, Urs, 2009. "Indirect reciprocity and strategic reputation building in an experimental helping game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 399-407, November.
    7. Kölle, Felix, 2015. "Heterogeneity and cooperation: The role of capability and valuation on public goods provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 120-134.
    8. Felix Kolle, 2012. "Heterogeneity and Cooperation in Privileged Groups: The Role of Capability and Valuation on Public Goods Provision," Discussion Papers 2012-07, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    9. Blanco, Esther & Haller, Tobias & Lopez, Maria Claudia & Walker, James M., 2016. "The tension between private benefits and degradation externalities from appropriation in the commons," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 136-147.
    10. repec:cgr:cgsser:03-08 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Bharat Chandar & Uri Gneezy & John A. List & Ian Muir, 2019. "The Drivers of Social Preferences: Evidence from a Nationwide Tipping Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 26380, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Brülhart, Marius & Usunier, Jean-Claude, 2004. "Verified Trust: Reciprocity, Altruism and Noise in Trust Games," CEPR Discussion Papers 4758, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Nathalie Colombier & David Masclet & Daniel Mirza & Claude Montmarquette, 2011. "Global Security Policies against Terrorism and the Free Riding Problem: An Experimental Approach," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(5), pages 755-790, October.
    14. Kim, Jeongbin & Putterman, Louis & Zhang, Xinyi, 2022. "Trust, Beliefs and Cooperation: Excavating a Foundation of Strong Economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    15. Erik O. Kimbrough & Alexander Vostroknutov, 2016. "Norms Make Preferences Social," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 608-638, June.
    16. Takafumi Yamakawa & Yoshitaka Okano & Tatsuyoshi Saijo, 2016. "Detecting motives for cooperation in public goods experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 500-512, June.
    17. Roberto Burlando & Francesco Guala, 2005. "Heterogeneous Agents in Public Goods Experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 8(1), pages 35-54, April.
    18. Papa Stefano, 2011. "Oltre l’egoismo: L’approccio comportamentale alle preferenze," wp.comunite 0077, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    19. Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Müller, Julia & Zitzelsberger, Sonja, 2023. "Asymmetric heterogeneities and the role of transfers in a public goods experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    20. Fabian Kleine & Manfred Königstein & Balázs Rozsnyói, 2018. "Voluntary Leadership and Asymmetric Endowments in the Investment Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-21, July.
    21. Ola Kvaløy & Miguel Luzuriaga & Trond E. Olsen, 2017. "A trust game in loss domain," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 860-877, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    logrolling; social preferences; reciprocity; externalities; public bad; public good;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • 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:wil:wileco:2012-02. 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: Greg Phelan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edwilus.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.