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International and domestic efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions require a coordinated effort from heterogeneous actors. In this context, using a public good game with a climate change framing, the experiment reported here examines whether groups of heterogeneous individuals can meet a collective emission-reduction target through individual contributions. In terms of the framing, participants differ in terms of their marginal costs of abatement. The experiment consists of two games: a counterfactual baseline scenario examining the scope for voluntary cooperation and a communication game examining the role of stakeholder participation in facilitating cooperation. During the communication game, subjects are able to communicate with one another in order to coordinate contribution strategies. The results suggest that relying on the voluntary cooperation of individuals will not be sufficient to meet the mitigation target. Furthermore, while communication plays a role in promoting cooperation, even when heterogeneity is present, the non-binding nature of communication results in significant levels of free-riding. In particular, with the introduction of communication, two dominant contribution norms of free-riding and perfect-cooperation emerge. This outcome emphasizes the importance of sanctioning opportunities in ensuring compliance with mitigation obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the collective action problem as it relates to climate change and develops two models that capture the mitigation-adaptation trade-off. The first model presents climate change as a disaster that will occur with certainty, and where both mitigation and adaptation reduce the size of the loss associated with the disaster (the so-called deterministic model). The second model presents climate change as an uncertain event, where mitigation affects the probability of disaster while adaptation again reduces the size of the loss (this is the so-called stochastic model). Comparing the two models in a one-shot public goods experiment with students, we find no significant differences in subjects' choice to mitigate. The experiments also reveal a relatively low rate of mitigation for both models compared with earlier studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the impact of income inequality on public good provision in an experimental setting. A sample of secondary school students were recruited to participate in a simple linear public goods game where income heterogeneity was introduced by providing participants with unequal token endowments. The results show that endowment heterogeneity does not have any significant impact on contributions to the public good, and that consistent with models of reciprocity, low and high endowment players contribute the same fraction of their endowment to the public pool. Moreover, individuals appear to adjust their contributions in order to maintain a fair share rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often contended that rural development works most effectively when beneficiary communities are active project participants, and not the passive recipients of assistance. This paper analyses participatory development through the lens of public goods theory. South Africa's Community Water Supply & Sanitation Programme is discussed as a case study. Conclusions from our game-theoretic analysis are used to make suggestions for South African development policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Studies have shown that there are differences in cooperative behavior across countries. Furthermore, differences in the use and the reaction on the introduction of a norm enforcement mechanism have been documented in cross-cultural studies, recently. We present data which prove that stark differences in both dimensions can exist even within the same town. For this end, a unique data set was created, based on public goods experiments conducted in Cape Town, South Africa. Most of the differences in behavior can, however, be explained by variables accounting for social capital and social environment, such as trust or household violence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We use behavioral and experimental economics to study a particular aspect of the economics of climate change: the potential trade-off between countries'' investments in mitigation versus adaptation. While mitigation of greenhouse gases can be viewed as a public good, adaptation to climate change is a private good, benefiting only the country or the individual that invests in adaptation. We use a one-shot public-goods game that deviates from the standard public-goods game by introducing a stochastic term to account for probabilistic destruction in a climate-change setting, where the probability density function is mapped to within-group levels of mitigation. We compare low-vulnerability and high-vulnerability treatments by varying the magnitude of disaster across treatments. Our results show that there is no significant difference in the level of mitigation across these treatments. Further, our results emphasize the role of trust in enhancing cooperation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]