IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v108y2024ics2214804323001714.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cooperation is unaffected by the threat of severe adverse events in public goods games

Author

Listed:
  • Bilancini, Ennio
  • Boncinelli, Leonardo
  • Nardi, Chiara
  • Pizziol, Veronica

Abstract

In the context of a one-shot public goods game with a large group size and a low marginal per capita return, we study if and how cooperation is affected by the presence of environmental risk – defined as an exogenous stochastic process that generates a severe adverse event with a very small probability – and by the correlation of such risk among the group members. More specifically, we run an online experiment to investigate the effect of a risk that is independent across group members, a risk that is positively correlated among group members, and a risk that is negatively correlated among group members on cooperation. We find that neither the presence nor the correlation of risk significantly affects individual contributions.

Suggested Citation

  • Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Nardi, Chiara & Pizziol, Veronica, 2024. "Cooperation is unaffected by the threat of severe adverse events in public goods games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:108:y:2024:i:c:s2214804323001714
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2023.102145
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804323001714
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2023.102145?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    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. Güth, Werner & Levati, M. Vittoria & Soraperra, Ivan, 2015. "Common and private signals in public goods games with a point of no return," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 164-184.
    3. Mariana Blanco & Dirk Engelmann & Alexander Koch & Hans-Theo Normann, 2010. "Belief elicitation in experiments: is there a hedging problem?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(4), pages 412-438, December.
    4. Bicchieri, Cristina & Dimant, Eugen & Gächter, Simon & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2022. "Social proximity and the erosion of norm compliance," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 59-72.
    5. Antonio A. Arechar & Simon Gächter & Lucas Molleman, 2018. "Conducting interactive experiments online," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 99-131, March.
    6. Jennifer Zelmer, 2003. "Linear Public Goods Experiments: A Meta-Analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(3), pages 299-310, November.
    7. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Celadin, Tatiana, 2022. "Social value orientation and conditional cooperation in the online one-shot public goods game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 243-272.
    8. Vesely, Stepan & Wengström, Erik, 2017. "Risk and Cooperation: Experimental Evidence from Stochastic Public Good Games," Working Papers 2017:3, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    9. 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.
    10. R. Mark Isaac & James M. Walker, 1988. "Group Size Effects in Public Goods Provision: The Voluntary Contributions Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 179-199.
    11. Luca Corazzini & Robert Sugden, 2011. "Common fate, game harmony and contributions to public goods: experimental evidence," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 58(1), pages 43-52, March.
    12. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    13. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    14. M. Vittoria Levati & Andrea Morone, 2013. "Voluntary Contributions with Risky and Uncertain Marginal Returns: The Importance of the Parameter Values," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 15(5), pages 736-744, October.
    15. Fabrice Etilé & Pierre Combris & Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy & Sabrina Teyssier, 2014. "Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-02076872, HAL.
    16. Daniele Nosenzo & Simone Quercia & Martin Sefton, 2015. "Cooperation in small groups: the effect of group size," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(1), pages 4-14, March.
    17. Kocher, Martin G. & Martinsson, Peter & Matzat, Dominik & Wollbrant, Conny, 2015. "The role of beliefs, trust, and risk in contributions to a public good," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 236-244.
    18. Florian Artinger & Nadine Fleischhut & M. Vittoria Levati & Jeffrey R. Stevens, 2012. "Cooperation in a Risky Environment: Decisions from Experience in a Stochastic Social Dilemma," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-047, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    19. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Rasocha, Vlastimil, 2021. "Experimental methods: Eliciting beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 234-256.
    20. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David B. Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2017. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," NBER Working Papers 23943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Diederich, Johannes & Goeschl, Timo & Waichman, Israel, 2016. "Group size and the (in)efficiency of pure public good provision," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 272-287.
    22. Ernst Fehr & Karla Hoff & Mayuresh Kshetramade, 2008. "Spite and Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 494-499, May.
    23. 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.
    24. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    25. Weisel, Ori & Zultan, Ro׳i, 2016. "Social motives in intergroup conflict: Group identity and perceived target of threat," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 122-133.
    26. Thomas C. Brown & Stephan Kroll, 2017. "Avoiding an uncertain catastrophe: climate change mitigation under risk and wealth heterogeneity," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 141(2), pages 155-166, March.
    27. Freundt, Jana & Lange, Andreas, 2021. "On the voluntary provision of public goods under risk," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    28. Erte Xiao & Howard Kunreuther, 2016. "Punishment and Cooperation in Stochastic Social Dilemmas," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 60(4), pages 670-693, June.
    29. Vincent Théroude & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2020. "Cooperation in a risky world," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(2), pages 388-407, April.
    30. Chris Starmer, 2000. "Developments in Non-expected Utility Theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 332-382, June.
    31. Todd Cherry & E. Lance Howe & James J. Murphy, 2012. "Sharing as Risk Pooling in a Social Dilemma Experiment," Working Papers 2012-01, University of Alaska Anchorage, Department of Economics.
    32. Björk, Lisa & Kocher, Martin & Martinsson, Peter & Nam Khanh, Pham, 2016. "Cooperation under risk and ambiguity," Working Papers in Economics 683, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    33. Lata Gangadharan & Veronika Nemes, 2009. "Experimental Analysis Of Risk And Uncertainty In Provisioning Private And Public Goods," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 146-164, January.
    34. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    35. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy & Sabrina Teyssier, 2014. "Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(1), pages 195-217, June.
    36. Catola, Marco & D’Alessandro, Simone & Guarnieri, Pietro & Pizziol, Veronica, 2021. "Personal norms in the online public good game," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    37. Vincent Théroude & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2017. "Cooperation in a risky world," Working Papers halshs-01443917, HAL.
    38. Isaac, R. Mark & Walker, James M. & Williams, Arlington W., 1994. "Group size and the voluntary provision of public goods : Experimental evidence utilizing large groups," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-36, May.
    39. Drazen Prelec, 1998. "The Probability Weighting Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 497-528, May.
    40. 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.
    41. Dickinson, David L., 1998. "The voluntary contributions mechanism with uncertain group payoffs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 517-533, May.
    42. M. Levati & Andrea Morone & Annamaria Fiore, 2009. "Voluntary contributions with imperfect information: An experimental study," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 199-216, January.
    43. Astrid Dannenberg & Andreas Löschel & Gabriele Paolacci & Christiane Reif & Alessandro Tavoni, 2015. "On the Provision of Public Goods with Probabilistic and Ambiguous Thresholds," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 61(3), pages 365-383, July.
    44. Valerio Capraro & Hélène Barcelo, 2015. "Group Size Effect on Cooperation in One-Shot Social Dilemmas II: Curvilinear Effect," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-11, July.
    45. Zhang, Huanren, 2019. "Common fate motivates cooperation: The influence of risks on contributions to public goods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 12-21.
    46. Anderson, Simon P. & Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A., 1998. "A theoretical analysis of altruism and decision error in public goods games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 297-323, November.
    47. Manfred Milinski & Torsten Röhl & Jochem Marotzke, 2011. "Cooperative interaction of rich and poor can be catalyzed by intermediate climate targets," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 109(3), pages 807-814, December.
    48. Marco Catola & Simone D'Alessandro & Pietro Guarnieri & Veronica Pizziol, 2021. "Personal norms in the online public good game," Discussion Papers 2021/276, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    49. James Andreoni & John Miller, 2002. "Giving According to GARP: An Experimental Test of the Consistency of Preferences for Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 737-753, 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. Marco Catola & Pietro Guarnieri & Veronica Pizziol & Chiara Rapallini, 2023. "Measuring the attitude towards a European public budget: A cross-country experiment," Discussion Papers 2023/300, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.

    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. Kreitmair, Ursula & Bower-Bir, Jacob, 2021. "Too different to solve climate change? Experimental evidence on the effects of production and benefit heterogeneity on collective action," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    2. Luigi Butera & Philip Grossman & Daniel Houser & John List & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2020. "A New Mechanism to Alleviate the Crises of Confidence in Science - With an Application to the Public Goods Game," Artefactual Field Experiments 00684, The Field Experiments Website.
    3. Stoddard, Brock & Walker, James M. & Williams, Arlington, 2014. "Allocating a voluntarily provided common-property resource: An experimental examination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 141-155.
    4. Vincent Théroude & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2017. "Cooperation in a risky world," Working Papers 1704, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    5. Freundt, Jana & Lange, Andreas, 2021. "On the voluntary provision of public goods under risk," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    6. Luigi Butera & Philip J Grossman & Daniel Houser & John A List & Marie Claire Villeval, 2020. "A New Mechanism to Alleviate the Crises of Confidence in Science With An Application to the Public Goods GameA Review," Working Papers halshs-02512932, HAL.
    7. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy & Sabrina Teyssier, 2014. "Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(1), pages 195-217, June.
    8. Vesely, Stepan & Wengström, Erik, 2017. "Risk and Cooperation: Experimental Evidence from Stochastic Public Good Games," Working Papers 2017:3, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    9. Esther Blanco & Maria Claudia Lopez & James M. Walker, 2016. "The Opportunity Costs of Conservation with Deterministic and Probabilistic Degradation Externalities," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 64(2), pages 255-273, June.
    10. Luigi Butera & John A. List, 2017. "An Economic Approach to Alleviate the Crises of Confidence in Science: With an Application to the Public Goods Game," NBER Working Papers 23335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Kim, Jeongbin & Putterman, Louis & Zhang, Xinyi, 2022. "Trust, Beliefs and Cooperation: Excavating a Foundation of Strong Economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    12. Vincent Théroude & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2017. "Cooperation in a risky world," Working Papers halshs-01443917, HAL.
    13. Jana Freundt & Andreas Lange, 2019. "On the Impact of Risky Private and Public Returns in the Private Provision of Public Goods - The Case of Social Investments," CESifo Working Paper Series 7458, CESifo.
    14. Billur Aksoy & Silvana Krasteva, 2020. "When does less information translate into more giving to public goods?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(4), pages 1148-1177, December.
    15. Zack Dorner & Steven Tucker & Gazi Hassan, 2021. "A veil of ignorance: uncertain and ambiguous individual productivity supports stable contributions to a public good," Working Papers in Economics 21/01, University of Waikato.
    16. Angela Stefania Bergantino & Sara Gil‐Gallen & Andrea Morone, 2023. "Do risk and competition trigger conditional cooperation? Evidence from public good experiments," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(1), pages 39-73, March.
    17. Malte Baader & Simon Gaechter & Kyeongtae Lee & Martin Sefton, 2022. "Social preferences and the variability of conditional cooperation," Discussion Papers 2022-13, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    18. 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.
    19. Caleb A. Cox & Brock Stoddard, 2021. "Common-Value Public Goods and Informational Social Dilemmas," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 343-369, May.
    20. Brock V Stoddard, 2015. "Probabilistic Production of a Public Good," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(1), pages 37-52.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public goods game; Online experiment; Social dilemma; Cooperation; Risk; Adverse events;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:eee:soceco:v:108:y:2024:i:c:s2214804323001714. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.