Membership in citizen groups

We analyze the coordination problem of agents deciding to join a group that uses membership revenues to provide a discrete public good and excludable benefits. The public good and the benefits are jointly produced, so that benefits are valued only if the group succeeds in providing the public good. With asymmetric information about the cost of provision, the static membership game admits a unique equilibrium and we characterize the optimal membership fee. We show that heterogeneity in valuations for the excludable benefits is always detrimental to the group. However, in a dynamic contest in which heterogeneity arises endogenously (returning members receive additional seniority benefits at the expense of junior members), we show that, in the ex-ante optimal contract, offering seniority benefits is beneficial for the group, despite the heterogeneity in valuations created.     

Weak Moral Motivation Leads to the Decline of Voluntary Contributions

We develop a model that accounts for the decay of the average contribution observed in experiments on voluntary contributions to a public good. The novel idea is that people's moral motivation is “weak.” Their judgment about the right contribution depends on observed contributions by group members and on an intrinsic “moral ideal.” We show that the assumption of weakly morally motivated agents leads to the decline of the average contribution over time. The model is compatible with persistence of overcontributions, variability of contributions (across and within individuals), the “restart effect” and the observation that the decay in contributions is slower in longer games. Furthermore, it offers a rationale for conditional cooperation.     

Former Communist party membership and bribery in the post-socialist countries

We study the effect of former Communist party membership on paying bribes to public officials and motivations for bribery, 25 years after the fall of communist rule. Data come from a large representative survey, conducted in post-socialist countries in 2015/16. To deal with endogeneity, we instrument party membership with information on whether family members were affected by the Second World War. Instrumental variable results suggest that links to the former Communist party increase the likelihood of paying bribes today; this result applies to the former party members as well as their children and relatives. Among bribe payers, people with the party links are more likely to offer bribes as well as think that bribe payments are expected. Overall, our findings suggest that the proclivity to corruption of the former Communist party members has been transmitted through family and thus sustained over time, contributing to corruption decades after the demise of the Socialist bloc.     

Income Heterogeneity in the Voluntary Provision of Dynamic Public Goods

This paper explores the effect of income inequality on the voluntary contributions to a dynamic public good. We find that income heterogeneity has a significant impact both on contributions and welfare. The results show that the often observed decay of cooperation does not carry over to the asymmetric environment considered in this study. Our results also suggest that subjects in each income class make different contribution amounts in an absolute sense and give the same percentage of their income. Moreover, we find that contributions of individuals with the same endowment are sensitive to how heterogeneous the environment is.     

Cooperation and framing effects in provision point mechanisms: Experimental evidence

Andreoni (1995) showed that pure framing effects may influence contribution in Voluntary Contribution Mechanisms (VCM) by comparing a standard public goods game, called the positive frame condition (giving to the public good), with a negative frame condition (taking from the public good) where the subjects' choice to purchase a private good makes the other subjects worse off. This paper aims at testing the robustness of such framing effects in the context of Provision Point Mechanisms (PPM). Our approach is original in that it combines both framing and provision point dimensions by comparing maintaining (taking from the public good) and creating (giving to the public good) contexts using Provision Point experiments. Consistent with previous findings, we find that individuals tend to be less cooperative in the maintaining frame than in the creating frame. Our results also show that the framing effects are stronger under a PPM than under a VCM and increase with the provision point level. These results may have important consequences for the management of environmental resources.     

VCM or PPM? A comparison of the performance of two voluntary public goods mechanisms

Little progress has been made toward understanding the relative performance of the two mechanisms most widely used for fundraising: the Voluntary Contribution (VCM) and Provision Point (PPM) mechanisms. This paper provides direct comparisons of the relative performance of variants of the VCM and PPM as they are most commonly implemented in the field. The research makes use of 1296 individual observations from 721 subjects, including 40 observations from a field experiment. A meta-analysis of the determinants of contribution levels and bootstrap estimates of the relative efficiency of the two mechanisms provide novel analyses of public goods experimental data. Overall, the PPM is found to increase total contributions, to be more responsive to changes in induced value, and to be generally more efficient than the VCM. For public goods with a benefit-cost ratio in the interval [1, 1.4), however, the VCM captures a greater portion of available benefits than the PPM.     

Leading by example with and without exclusion power in voluntary contribution experiments

We examine the effects of leading by example in voluntary contribution experiments. Leadership is implemented by letting one group member contribute to the public good before followers do. Such leadership increases contributions in comparison to the standard voluntary contribution mechanism, especially so when it goes along with authority in the form of granting the leader exclusion power. Whether leadership is fixed or rotating among group members has no significant influence on contributions. Only a minority of groups succeeds in endogenously installing a leader, even though groups with leaders are much more efficient than groups without a leader.     

Giving little by little: Dynamic voluntary contribution games

Charitable contributions are frequently made over time. Donors are free to contribute whenever they wish and as often as they want, and are frequently updated on the level of contributions by others. A dynamic structure enables donors to condition their contribution on that of others, and, as Schelling [Schelling, Thomas C., The Strategy of Conflict Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.] suggested, it may establish trust thereby increasing charitable giving. Marx and Matthews [Marx, Leslie, and Steven Matthews, “A Dynamic Voluntary Contribution to a Public Project,” Review of Economic Studies, 67, 2000, 327-358.] build on Schelling's insight and show that multiple contribution rounds may secure a provision level that cannot be achieved in the static, one-shot setting, but only if there is a discrete, positive payoff jump upon completion of the project. We examine these two hypotheses experimentally using static and dynamic public good games. We find that contributions are indeed higher in the dynamic than in the static game. However, in contrast to the predictions, the increase in contributions in the dynamic game does not depend critically on the existence of a completion benefit jump or on whether players can condition their decisions on the behavior of other members of their group.     

House Money Effects in Public Good Experiments

Are decisions in economics experiments distorted because the money subjects risk comes from the experimenter rather than their own pockets? There is some evidence that people receiving small, one time “windfall gains” have a higher marginal propensity to consume them, and when doing so, exhibit greater risk-seeking behaviour. This has been found in individual decision making experiments when anticipated wealth effects have been controlled, and labelled the “house money effect.” In public good experiments, house money effects could be driving the high levels of voluntary contributions commonly observed. This possibility is tested by comparing VCM contribution rates when subjects supply their own endowments with those when endowments are provided, while holding constant the distribution of promised earnings. No evidence of house money effects is found, suggesting that use of “free” initial money endowments does not distort subsequent contributions in VCM environments.     

Context Effects in a Negatively Framed Social Dilemma Experiment

A number of studies of the positively-framed voluntary contribution mechanism (VCM) public goods game have examined the role of context on participant behavior. Relatively little attention, however, has been given to the effects of context in negatively-framed VCM games even though this setting is relevant to a wide array of real world challenges, such as common pool resource use and pollution externalities. This study uses a carefully-controlled laboratory experiment to investigate the degree to which the context in which decisions are made influences decision making in a negatively-framed VCM laboratory experiment. The context treatments that we evaluate vary communication, voting, and the status quo of the initial endowment. Results indicate that providing groups the opportunity to communicate and vote significantly reduces choices that impose external costs. Importantly, the pro-social effects of communication and voting are strongest when the status quo endowment is the private account, which generates costs on other participants. This result suggests that the effect of the status quo endowment is a function of whether the social dilemma is framed positively or negatively when communication between participants is allowed.     

公共品供给的实验研究 及其未来可能的进展

传统经济学基于理性“经济人”基础,认为公地悲剧问题是个体理性选择的必然结果,公共品供给需采取与个体真实公共品偏好相兼容的激励机制,并由政府承担供给角色。实验经济学研究则提供个体异质社会偏好的稳健性证据,并在合适的惩罚、沟通交流和声誉等机制下提供诸多可以实现公共品自愿供给的实验证据,表明群体或自愿组织也可作为公共品供给主体。这些公共品实验研究为现实公共治理创新提供更为科学的偏好基础和公共治理思路。     

Assessing the convergence and mobility of nations without artificially specified class boundaries

There is a long-established practice in the empirical growth and convergence literature of classifying countries into groups or clubs by arbitrarily specifying group boundaries. A problem with this approach is that determining boundaries in a particular fashion also determines the nature of the group in a way that is often prejudicial for analysis ultimately affecting the way transition and class mobility behavior is evaluated. Here a semi-parametric technique for class categorization without resort to arbitrarily specified frontiers is proposed and the convergence of classes and mobility between them is studied in the context of the size distribution of per capita GDP of nations. Category membership is partially determined by the commonality of observed behavior of category members: partial in the sense that only the probability of category membership in each category is determined for each country. Such an approach does not inhibit the size of classes or the nature of transitions between them. A study of the world distribution over the 40 years preceding 2010 reveals substantial changes in class sizes and mobility patterns between them which are very different from those observed in a fixed class size analysis.     

International Environmental Agreements under Endogenous Uncertainty

This paper explores the implications of the possibility of a shift in environmental damages on the participation in environmental treaties. Using a two‐period model where the probability of a regime shift increases in the first‐period pollution stock, we examine the issue of coalition formation under both fixed and dynamic membership. Our analysis suggests that endogenous uncertainty may increase participation. We find that full cooperation may be sustained, but only in the presence of endogenous uncertainty. Interestingly, when the shift in the environmental damage is large enough, the model provides a way to solve the “puzzle of small coalitions” found in the literature related to international environmental agreements. We also find that in period 1 (period 2) endogenous uncertainty leads to a lower (higher) pollution stock under dynamic membership as compared to the fixed membership case.     

部分群体资格：以高校学生入党经历为例

任何非先赋的群体资格的获得,都需经过一个非群体资格一部分群体资格一完备群体资格的过程,即群体资格具有梯度特征,是一个连续统。部分群体资格在现实生活中广泛存在却为人们所忽视。本文以高校学生入党经历为例,探讨了部分群体资格的构造和获得过程。论文指出,部分群体资格的设置,既为个人提供了勘查和学习的机会,并激起更强烈的认同;也为群体提供了筛选成员的机会,并确立了群体权威和合法性。部分群体资格的获得,由内外群成员共同决定,但两者依据的标准不同。仪式在该过程中起到重要作用,而部分群体资格成员会运用策略进行积极的筹划和回应。论文在最后讨论了部分群体资格的理论内涵和现实意义。     

Membership size in the educable cooperative facing uncertain demand

This article explicitly incorporates layoff and hiring costs into a discretetime dynamic model with stationary demand uncertainty, in which managers in a cooperative learn something about the demand process over time, and anticipate learning something about that process. It is shown how the opportunity to learn affects initial membership size and how the knowledge gained induces changes in membership, as well as how risk preferences impact on membership size at any point in time.     

Religious and Economic Preferences: An Empirical Analysis of State Tax Rates and Public Spending

In an attempt to examine the role of religion and religious institutions in the formation of economic and political preferences, we empirically test the relationship between religious and economic variables in the context of the 50 US states. Specifically, we test whether changes in the religious composition of states over time influences state tax rates (public revenue), and state spending patterns (public expenditure). We use church membership rates and religious contributions as alternative measures of a state's religiosity level. The results report a weak relationship between state tax rates and the religiosity of the state population over time. However, a negative relationship was observed between religiosity and public welfare spending, and a positive relationship between religiosity and public education spending. Variations arise when Catholics are included in the analysis of public spending.     

A Theory of Congregational Giving

This paper proposes a model to explain a broad range of established empirical facts about giving and attendance rates in religious congregations. We treat the religious service collectively consumed by the congregation as a “participatory” public good, in the sense that while its quality increases in contributions, individual consumption varies by the amount of time devoted toward attendance. The model predicts that lower income individuals will be overrepresented in religious congregations, with giving concentrated among higher income members. Inclusive doctrine is shown to increase membership but reduce average giving and attendance, while “tithing” requirements reduce membership and increase total giving.     

Group membership,team preferences,and expectations

Group membership is a powerful determinant of social behaviour in a variety of experimental games. Its effect may be channelled primarily via the beliefs of group members, or directly change their social preferences. We report an experiment with a prisoner's dilemma with multiple actions, in which we manipulate players’ beliefs and show that group identity has a consistent positive effect on cooperation only when there is common knowledge of group affiliation. We also test the robustness of the minimal group effect using three different manipulations: one manipulation fails to induce group identity, and we observe an unsystematic effect of group membership when knowledge of affiliation is asymmetric.     

Increasing Fundraising Success by Decreasing Donor Choice

Suggested contributions, membership categories, and discrete, incremental thank you gifts are devices often used by benevolent associations that provide public goods. Such devices focus donations at discrete levels, thereby effectively limiting the donors' freedom to give. We study the effects on overall donations of the trade‐off between rigid schemes that severely restrict the choices of contribution on the one hand, and flexible membership contracts on the other, taking into account the strategic response of contributors whose values for the public good are private information. We show flexibility dominates when (i) the dispersion of donors' taste for the public good increases, (ii) the number of potential donors increases, and (iii) there is greater funding by an external authority. Our theoretical results are consistent with three basic patterns we discover in the membership schemes of National Public Radio stations: stations offer a larger number of suggested contribution levels—a proxy for flexibility—as (i) the incomes of the population served become more diverse, (ii) the population of the coverage area increases, and (iii) there is greater external support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.     

Endogenous Group Formation

While the rules governing the formation of groups engaging in collective action may have significant impact on group size and behavior of members, most experiments on public goods have been conducted with the subjects in exogenously fixed groups or of fixed sizes. We study endogenous formation of groups in a public‐goods provision game by allowing subjects to change groups under three sets of rules: free entry/exit, restricted entry with free exit, and free entry with restricted exit. We find that the rules governing entry and exit do have a significant impact on individual behavior and group‐level outcomes.