Guilt in Voting and Public Good Games

Dominik Rothenhaüsler (), Nikolaus Schweizer () and Nora Szech ()
Additional contact information
Dominik Rothenhaüsler: Seminar for Statistics, ETH Zurich
Nikolaus Schweizer: Department of Econometrics and OR, Tilburg University
Nora Szech: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie

No 2016-026, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: This paper analyzes how moral costs affect individual support of morally difficult group decisions. We study a threshold public good game with moral costs. Motivated by recent empirical findings, we assume that these costs are heterogeneous and consist of three parts. The first one is a standard cost term. The second, shared guilt, decreases in the number of supporters. The third hinges on the notion of being pivotal. We analyze equilibrium predictions, isolate the causal effects of guilt sharing, and compare results to standard utilitarian and nonconsequentialist approaches. As interventions, we study information release, feedback, and fostering individual moral standards.

Keywords: moral decision making; committee decisions; diffusion of responsibility; Shared guilt; being pivotal; division of labor; institutions and morals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D03 D23 D63 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hpe and nep-mic
Note: MIP
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Rothen ... ilt-voting-games.pdf First version, 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Guilt in voting and public good games (2018)
Working Paper: Guilt in voting and public good games (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hka:wpaper:2016-026

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