Delegation and Coordination with Multiple Threshold Public Goods: Experimental Evidence

Luca Corazzini, Christopher Cotton and Tommaso Reggiani ()

No 12817, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: When multiple charities, social programs and community projects simultaneously vie for funding, donors risk miscoordinating their contributions leading to an inefficient distribution of funding across projects. Community chests and other intermediary organizations facilitate coordination among donors and reduce such risks. To study this, we extend a threshold public goods framework to allow donors to contribute through an intermediary rather than directly to the public goods. Through a series of experiments, we show that the presence of an intermediary increases public good success and subjects' earnings only when the intermediary is formally committed to direct donations to socially beneficial goods. Without such a restriction, the presence of an intermediary has a negative impact, complicating the donation environment, decreasing contributions and public good success.

Keywords: laboratory experiment; threshold public goods; delegation; fundraising (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 H40 H41 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - revised version published in: Experimental Economics , 2020, 23 (4), 1030-1068

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Related works:
Working Paper: Delegation And Coordination With Multiple Threshold Public Goods: Experimental Evidence (2023)
Journal Article: Delegation and coordination with multiple threshold public goods: experimental evidence (2020)
Working Paper: Delegation and Coordination with Multiple Threshold Public Goods: Experimental Evidence (2019)
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