Dealing with aversion to the sucker's payoff in public goods games

Douadia Bougherara, Sandrine Costa (), Gilles Grolleau () and Lisette Ibanez
Additional contact information
Sandrine Costa: INRA-ENGREF, UMR0356, F-54000 Nancy, France

Economics Bulletin, 2009, vol. 29, issue 4, 3194-3202

Abstract: A usual explanation to low levels of contribution to public goods is the fear of getting the sucker's payoff (cooperation by the participant and defection by the other players). In order to disentangle the effect of this fear from other motives, we design a public good game where people have an insurance against getting the sucker's payoff. We show that contributions to the public good under this ‘protective' design are significantly higher and interact with expectations on other individuals' contribution to the public good. Some policy implications and extensions are suggested.

Keywords: Experiments; Public good; Sucker's payoff; Assurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 H4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-12-23
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2009/Volume29/EB-09-V29-I4-P309.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Dealing with aversion to the sucker's payoff in public goods games (2009)
Working Paper: Dealing with the aversion to the sucker’s payoff in public goods game (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-09-00730

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