Public good provision mechanisms and reciprocity

Maria Kozlovskaya and Antonio Nicolo'

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2019, vol. 167, issue C, 235-244

Abstract: This paper determines optimal public good provision mechanisms in an environment where agents are motivated by reciprocity. In a two-agent economy, we show that the standard pivot mechanism is not strategy-proof if at least one agent cares strongly enough about reciprocity. Truthful reporting maximises a player’s own payoff and hence is viewed as selfish by his opponent, who retaliates by understating demand for the public good. Incentive compatibility is restored if the mechanism is implemented sequentially. When agents are asked to report their demands in turn, a high report by the first mover (he) may result in him paying an unfairly large share of the provision cost, should the second mover (she) understate her demand. Hence, truthful reporting is not judged as selfish by the second mover, who reciprocates by stating her true demand. Our results alert the institutional designer to the importance of game dynamics when agents are non-selfish.

Keywords: Psychological game theory; Mechanism design; Reciprocity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C79 D63 D82 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268119300319
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:167:y:2019:i:c:p:235-244

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2019.02.001

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 ().