Position Uncertainty in a Sequential Public Goods Game: An Experiment

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Anwar, Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib, Georgalos, Konstantinos
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2023
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author Anwar, Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib
Georgalos, Konstantinos
author_facet Anwar, Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib
Georgalos, Konstantinos
contents Gallice and Monzón (2019) present a natural environment that sustains full co-operation in one-shot social dilemmas among a finite number of self-interested agents. They demonstrate that in a sequential public goods game, where agents lack knowledge of their position in the sequence but can observe some predecessors' actions, full contribution emerges in equilibrium due to agents' incentive to induce potential successors to follow suit. In this study, we aim to test the theoretical predictions of this model through an economic experiment. We conducted three treatments, varying the amount of information about past actions that a subject can observe, as well as their positional awareness. Through rigorous structural econometric analysis, we found that approximately 25% of the subjects behaved in line with the theoretical predictions. However, we also observed the presence of alternative behavioural types among the remaining subjects. The majority were classified as conditional co-operators, showing a willingness to cooperate based on others' actions. Some subjects exhibited altruistic tendencies, while only a small minority engaged in free-riding behaviour.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2308_00179
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Position Uncertainty in a Sequential Public Goods Game: An Experiment
Anwar, Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib
Georgalos, Konstantinos
General Economics
Economics
Gallice and Monzón (2019) present a natural environment that sustains full co-operation in one-shot social dilemmas among a finite number of self-interested agents. They demonstrate that in a sequential public goods game, where agents lack knowledge of their position in the sequence but can observe some predecessors' actions, full contribution emerges in equilibrium due to agents' incentive to induce potential successors to follow suit. In this study, we aim to test the theoretical predictions of this model through an economic experiment. We conducted three treatments, varying the amount of information about past actions that a subject can observe, as well as their positional awareness. Through rigorous structural econometric analysis, we found that approximately 25% of the subjects behaved in line with the theoretical predictions. However, we also observed the presence of alternative behavioural types among the remaining subjects. The majority were classified as conditional co-operators, showing a willingness to cooperate based on others' actions. Some subjects exhibited altruistic tendencies, while only a small minority engaged in free-riding behaviour.
title Position Uncertainty in a Sequential Public Goods Game: An Experiment
topic General Economics
Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.00179