Are default contributions sticky? An experimental analysis of defaults in public goods provision

Dominique Cappelletti, Luigi Mittone and Matteo Ploner

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2014, vol. 108, issue C, 331-342

Abstract: Previous research provides compelling evidence that defaults affect individual behaviour in several domains. However, evidence of their influence in strategic interaction is scant. We experimentally investigate the effect of defaults on contributions to a public good and attempt to shed light on potential channels through which they operate. Our main experimental findings show that defaults influence contribution behaviour: preference for a suggested contribution significantly increases when it is presented as the default. However, this effect seems not to operate primarily through information conveyance or expectations about others’ behaviour. Default contributions, thus, appear to have an attractive power that goes beyond recommendation signals and expectation influences.

Keywords: Defaults; Public goods; Beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268114000080
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:108:y:2014:i:c:p:331-342

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.01.002

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().