Religion and cooperation in a public goods experiment

We test whether religion affects adult subjects' decisions in a repeated public goods experiment. Contribution levels are not influenced by religious affiliation or participation. However, the decline with repetition is smaller among religious subjects, suggesting that religion may sustain cooperation.     

村民投资村级公共物品的实践与理性思考

村民投资村级公共物品的前提是具有共同的利益,但共同利益的实现依赖于集体行动困境的有效破解.即克服搭便车问题。良好的村庄社会资本为投资行为提供了社会环境和基础,尤其是村庄精英及以其为中心形成的网络为村民投资的形成有积极的组织和动员作用;内部激励机制是村民投资的社会基础,能有效克服集体行动中的搭便车行为。     

公共池塘资源自主治理理论与我国农村社区公共产品治理的研究

埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆的公共池塘资源自主治理理论完善了准公共产品理论,结合社会资本因素的集体行动及制度供给理论给我们提供了研究农村社区公共产品供给及治理新的视角。基于此,在简要回顾目前国内农村社区公共产品治理研究及其不足之处的基础上,借鉴公共池塘资源自主治理理论,提出今后我国农村社区公共产品治理研究中需要进一步加强研究的内容及方向,以促进农村公共事业的可持续发展。     

Cooperation under alternative punishment institutions: An experiment

While peer punishment has been shown to increase group cooperation, there is open debate on how cooperative norms can emerge and on what motives drive individuals to punish. In a public good experiment we compared alternative punishment institutions and found (1) higher cooperation levels under a consensual punishment institution than under autonomous individual punishment; (2) similar cooperation levels under sequential and simultaneous punishment institutions.     

Private provision of discrete public goods

We investigate private provision of discrete public goods under refund and cost-sharing. If it is commonly believed that individuals may be warm-glow altruists and the group-size is a Poisson random variable, then the equilibrium distribution of collected contributions is uniquely determined. If composition uncertainty is very small and the expected group-size sufficiently large, the distribution of contributions can be described by concentrating in a symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium. As the expected group-size increases, the probability a randomly selected player contributes and the associated expected number of contributions converge to the corresponding ones in the symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium of the game with no uncertainty.     

Country size and the voluntary provision of international public goods

Standard studies on voluntary contributions to an international public good treat national economies as if they were single agents. This masks the fact that nations are comprised of populations of citizens, whose collective benefits a national government takes account of when deciding on the amount of the contributions. This paper constructs a model which explicitly allows for the effect of population differences and explores their consequences. We can then present the so-called exploitation of the great by the small by Olson and Zeckhauser [Olson, M., Zeckhauser, R., 1966. An economic theory of alliances. Review of Economics and Statistics 48 (1966) 266–279] and explore how residents of larger countries fare relative to those in smaller countries. We also elaborate on the effects of changing populations and show that growing into a large country is not necessarily beneficial for the country's residents.     

Ethnic diversity, tax limitations and public goods

One strand of research in public economics has found that increasing ethnic diversity leads to reductions in provision of productive public goods. Another strand of research has emphasized the key role that tax and expenditure limitations play in the provision of public services. This paper explores the interaction between these two effects. The regression results suggest that the prior results on ethnic diversity are robust when TELs are taken into consideration. In addition, the imposition of TELs mitigates the negative effect of ethnic fragmentation on the share of local spending on education and roads. It also mitigates the positive correlation between ethnic diversity and total local government revenue and expenditure per capita.     

Non-monotonic group-size effect in repeated provision of public goods

This paper analyzes the effect of a change in group size on incentives to contribute in repeated provision of pure public goods. We develop a model in which group members interact repeatedly, and might be temporarily unable to contribute to public goods production during some periods. We show that an increase in the group size generates two opposite effects – the standard free-riding effect that suppresses cooperation, and the novel large-scale effect that enhances cooperation. Our results indicate that the former effect dominates in relatively large groups while the latter dominates in relatively small groups. We, therefore, provide a rationale for a non-monotonic group-size effect that may explain previous empirical and experimental findings.     

公共物品非营利组织供给的经济学分析

非营利性组织可以弥补政府和市场在公共物品提供上的不足。文章分析了非营利性组织提供公共物品的必要性,深入探讨了我国非营利组织提供公共物品时存在的主要问题,在此基础上,提出了一些对策和建议,以更好地发挥我国非营利性组织的公共物品提供中的作用。     

The Italian approach to the theory of public goods *

Abstract

The subject of needs is the centre of attention of Italian public finance scholars. The financial activity of the State is justified by the existence of collective or public needs to whose satisfaction collective or public goods and services are linked. Italian economists have studied the problems of public goods in a general context, taking into consideration concurrently both taxes and public expenditure and giving prominence to positive analysis. Italian theorists have always been far removed from the classical approach, which denies the productivity of public services, and have deemed it necessary to take into account the political context in which fiscal structures operate. Their models include the State as a major factor. Herein lies the main value of the Italian tradition in public finance, which puts in coercion into the market mechanism via State intervention.     

Revisiting the impact of impure public goods on consumers’ prosocial behavior: A lab experiment in Shanghai

In this study, we implemented a dictator game experiment to examine how the increase of the public characteristic in an impure public good affects individuals’ prosocial behaviour. A within‐subject design was used in the experiment. The dictator game was repeated six times with an impure public good introduced in four of them. We observe that the increase of the public characteristic in an impure public good partly crowds out individuals’ subsequent donations, which could be explained by a seemingly ‘mental accounting’ mental process. In addition, we also find that the selfish behaviour of individuals in dictator games with impure public goods, to some extent, has an inertia influence on their subsequent donations when the impure public good is removed.     

Sustaining cooperation in social dilemmas: Comparison of centralized punishment institutions

This study investigates two centralized punishment institutions for a linear public goods game. These institutions require a certain contribution level and sanction under-contributing players. The two differ in who, among those who do not meet this requirement, receive sanctions. In one institution, all violators are sanctioned, and in the other, only the worst violator(s) is sanctioned. Theoretically, the public goods game of the latter institution yields contributions equal to or greater than that of the former institution with the same requirement and sanction level. The results of an experiment support this theoretical prediction. However, there is a discrepancy between the theory and laboratory observations in that the institution with the theoretically optimal requirement did not yield the highest profit.     

Strategic Complements, Substitutes, and Ambiguity: The Implications for Public Goods

We examine the effect of ambiguity in symmetric games with aggregate externalities. We find that ambiguity will increase/decrease the equilibrium strategy in games with strategic complements/substitutes and positive externalities. These effects are reversed in games with negative externalities. We consider some economic applications of these results to Cournot oligopoly, bargaining, macroeconomic coordination, and voluntary donations to a public good. In particular we show that ambiguity may reduce free-riding. Comparative statics analysis shows that increases in uncertainty will increase donations, to a public good. Journal of Economic Literature C72, D81, H41.     

论农村公共物品供给中的均衡

自农村改革以来,存在四种农田灌溉均衡:一是税费改革前,乡村组织以收取共同生产费的形式来组织农田灌溉的均衡;二是由村庄强人出面组织农户进行灌溉的均衡;三是既无乡村组织借重国家强制力,也无村庄强人借重私人暴力来抑制搭便车行为,从而形成的以微型水利灌溉为主的均衡;四是以村民小组或村为单位建立用水协会,组织农户灌溉的均衡。在当下中国,由于农民特殊的公正观,乡村组织退出农村公共物品供给领域后,农村很可能普遍出现第二或第三种均衡的糟糕局面。因此,农村公共物品供给,必须以国家强制力为保障,形成国家与村庄之间合作与互补的供给机制。     

Ambiguity on audits and cooperation in a public goods game

We investigate the impact of various audit schemes on the provision of public goods, when contributing less than the average of the other group members is centrally sanctioned and the probability of an audit is unknown. We study how individuals update their beliefs about the probability of being audited, both before and after audits are permanently withdrawn. We find that when individuals have initially experienced systematic audits, they decrease both their beliefs and their contributions almost immediately after audits are withdrawn. In contrast, when audits were initially less frequent and more irregular, they maintain high beliefs and continue cooperating long after audits have been withdrawn. This identifies the compliance effect of irregularity and uncertainty due to learning difficulties. By increasing both the frequency of audits and the severity of sanctions, we also identify an educative effect of frequent and high sanctions on further cooperation.     

Punishment,counterpunishment and sanction enforcement in a social dilemma experiment

We present the results of an experiment that explores the sanctioning behavior of individuals who experience a social dilemma. In the game we study, players choose contribution levels to a public good and subsequently have multiple opportunities to reduce the earnings of the other members of the group. The treatments vary in terms of individuals’ opportunities to (a) avenge sanctions that have been directed toward themselves, and (b) punish others’ sanctioning behavior with respect to third parties. We find that individuals do avenge sanctions they have received, and this serves to decrease contribution levels. They also punish those who fail to sanction third parties, but the resulting increase in contributions is smaller than the decrease the avenging of sanctions induces. When there are five rounds of unrestricted sanctioning, contributions and welfare are significantly lower than when only one round of sanctioning opportunities exists, and welfare is lower than at a benchmark of zero cooperation. We thank James Andreoni, participants in seminars at Emory University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney, Deakin University, the 2004 North American Regional Meetings of the ESA in Tucson, Arizona, USA, the 2004 IMEBE Meetings in Cordoba, Spain, and the 2005 SAET meetings in Vigo, Spain, for constructive and helpful comments. We thank Elven Priour for programming and organization of the sessions. Instructions for the experiment are available from the authors.     

关于农村公共产品供给机制问题

农村公共产品的供给主体主要是政府.当前农村公共产品严重短缺,政府应该把公共资源的分配重点放在农村.建立农村公益事业建设一事一议财政奖补制度十分必要.一事一议的改革要遵循民主决策,筹补结合;直接受益,注重实效;规范管理,阳光操作三个基本原则和划分村级公益事业建设责任、明确一事一议财政奖补范围两个重点.     

The role of risk aversion in public goods dilemmas with environmental uncertainty: an experimental analysis

The purpose of this study is to extend earlier research on environmental uncertainty in public goods dilemmas. The present paper reports the results of an experiment designed to examine the effect of risk aversion on public goods provision. A von Neumann–Morgenstern utility function with constant coefficient of relative risk aversion is used to investigate the impact of risk attitudes within a threshold public goods environment. The outcome of the threshold public goods experiment shows that subjects are indifferent to the changes in environmental conditions. Additionally, the analysis indicates that risk aversion is a significant determinant of voluntary public goods contribution level.