Endogenous Shifts Over Time in Patterns of Contributions in Public Good Games Sun-Ki Chai
∗
Dolgorsuren Dorj
†
Ming Liu
‡
July 1, 2008
Abstract This paper studies endogenous preference change over time in a public good environment as an explanation of cooperative behavior. We investigate experimentally the role of (i) uncertainty and (ii) incentives for members of group size four. We compare the result to the benchmark with no uncertainty and no incentives. Our results show that (a) uncertainty in private account increases individual contribution level; (b) with uncertainty in public projects individuals contribute less, but the total contributions stay stable; (c) with incentives the outcome is close to the social optimum. JEL classification codes: C7, C91, C92, H41, D81.
∗
Corresponding author Department of Sociology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI 96822. Email:
[email protected] † Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI 96822. Email:
[email protected] ‡ Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI 96822. Email:
[email protected]
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