1. COMPETITION AND COOPERATION IN A PUBLIC GOODS GAME: A FIELD EXPERIMENT
- Author
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Jesse M. Cunha, Ned Augenblick, Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.), and Business & Public Policy (GSBPP)
- Subjects
Economics and Econometrics ,genetic structures ,Public economics ,business.industry ,Field experiment ,Control (management) ,Distribution (economics) ,Public good ,First order ,General Business, Management and Accounting ,Social preferences ,Competition (economics) ,Public goods game ,Economics ,business - Abstract
The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12105 We explore the effects of competitive and cooperative motivations on contributions in a field experiment. A total of 10,000 potential political donors received solicitations referencing past contribution behavior of members of the competing party (competition treatment), the same party (cooperative treatment), or no past contribution information (control). We first theoretically analyze the effect of these treatments on the contribution behavior of agents with different social preferences in a modified intergroup public good (IPG) game. Then, we report the empirical results: Contribution rates in the competitive, cooperative, and control treatments were 1.45%, 1.08%, and 0.78%, respectively. With the exception of one large contribution, the distribution of contributions in the compet- itive treatment first order stochastically dominates that of the cooperative treatment. Qualitatively, it appears that the cooperative treatment induced more contributions around the common monetary reference point, while the competitive treatment led to more contributions at twice this amount. These results suggest that eliciting competitive rather than cooperative motivations can lead to higher contributions in IPG settings. George P. Shultz Fund and the B.F. Haley and E.S. Shaw Fellowship
- Published
- 2014
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