Leadership in Public Good Games and Private Information on Own Social Value Orientation

Edward Cartwright, Yidan Chai and Lian Xue

Journal of Public Economic Theory, 2025, vol. 27, issue 2

Abstract: We explore whether information on one's own social value orientation (SVO) impacts contributions in a public good game with leadership by example. In doing so, we compare the predictions of a model of belief‐based preferences, where payoffs depend on first‐ and second‐order beliefs on the contributions of others, and a model of internalized descriptive norms, where payoffs depend on deviation from an empirical norm. We argue that if pro‐social behavior is driven by belief‐based preferences, then private information on SVO should not impact contributions, but if the behavior is driven by internalized descriptive norms, then information on its own SVO should impact contributions. We report an experiment with three treatments: no information on SVO, binary information whether pro‐self or pro‐social, and SVO indicated on a scale from very pro‐social to very pro‐self. We observe no effect of information on contributions. This finding is inconsistent with internalized descriptive norms. We find that contributions are highest with a pro‐social leader.

Date: 2025
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