Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Good Experiments

Urs Fischbacher and Simon Gaechter ()
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Simon Gaechter: University of Nottingham
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Simon Gächter ()

No 2009-04, Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham

Abstract: One lingering puzzle is why voluntary contributions to public goods decline over time in experimental and real-world settings. We show that the decline of cooperation is driven by individual preferences for imperfect conditional cooperation. Many people’s desire to contribute less than others, rather than changing beliefs of what others will contribute over time or people’s heterogeneity in preferences makes voluntary cooperation fragile. Universal free riding thus eventually emerges, despite the fact that most people are not selfish.

Keywords: Public goods experiments; social preferences; conditional cooperation; free riding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C72 H41 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-01
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Working Paper: Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Good Experiments (2008)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdx:dpaper:2009-04

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