No excuses for good behavior: Volunteering and the social environment

Sera Linardi () and Margaret A. McConnell

Journal of Public Economics, 2011, vol. 95, issue 5, 445-454

Abstract: We study the effect of the social environment on the quantity and quality of voluntary labor contributions. By extending Benabou and Tirole's (2006) image signaling framework, we derive theoretical predictions on time volunteered given (1) the availability of excuses to stop volunteering and (2) the presence of an authority figure. We test these predictions in an experiment where laboratory subjects are directly involved in a local nonprofit operation. We find that in the absence of excuses to stop volunteering, subjects volunteer longer without working less productively. This increase is partially driven by subjects' reluctance to be the first to stop volunteering. The presence of an authority figure has little impact, but the presence of peers has a positive and significant impact.

Keywords: Prosocial behavior; Experiments; Voluntary contributions; Labor; Social image; Organizational design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D64 L30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (62)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004727271000085X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Journal Article: No excuses for good behavior: Volunteering and the social environment (2011)
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:pubeco:v:95:y:2011:i:5:p:445-454

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.06.020

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

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