Guilt and participation

Amrish Patel and Alec Smith

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2019, vol. 167, issue C, 279-295

Abstract: How does guilt affect participation in providing public goods? We characterise and analyse completely mixed symmetric equilibria (CMSE) in participation games where players are guilt averse. We find that relative to material preferences, guilt aversion can: facilitate the existence of CMSE; increase or decrease participation; and imply that group size has a non-monotonic effect on participation. Using our equilibrium characterisation we also re-analyse experimental data on participation games and find a low, but positive, guilt sensitivity parameter.

Keywords: Participation; Threshold public good; Volunteer’s dilemma; Psychological games; Guilt aversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D91 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 (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:167:y:2019:i:c:p:279-295

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.06.009

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