Group size and collective action in a binary contribution game

Georg Nöldeke and Jorge Peña

Journal of Mathematical Economics, 2020, vol. 88, issue C, 42-51

Abstract: We consider how group size affects the private provision of a public good with non-refundable binary contributions. A fixed amount of the good is provided if and only if the number of contributors reaches an exogenous threshold. The threshold, the group size, and the identical, non-refundable cost of contributing to the public good are common knowledge. Our focus is on the case in which the threshold is larger than one, so that teamwork is required to produce the public good. We show that both expected payoffs and the probability that the public good is obtained in the best symmetric equilibrium are decreasing in group size. We also characterize the limit outcome when group size converges to infinity and provide precise conditions under which the expected number of contributors is decreasing or increasing in group size for sufficiently large groups.

Keywords: Private provision of public goods; Group size effects; Collective action; Threshold games; Participation games; Teamwork dilemma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406820300288
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Group size and collective action in a binary contribution game (2020)
Working Paper: Group size and collective action in a binary contribution game (2020)
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:mateco:v:88:y:2020:i:c:p:42-51

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2020.02.003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Mathematical Economics is currently edited by Atsushi (A.) Kajii

More articles in Journal of Mathematical Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().