Social Pressure in Networks Induces Public Good Provision

David Jimenez-Gomez
Additional contact information
David Jimenez-Gomez: Departamento de Fundamentos del Analisis Economico (FAE), University of Alicante, Campus de San Vicente, 03690 Alicante, Spain

Games, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: I develop a dynamic model with forward looking agents, and show that social pressure is effective in generating provision in a public good game: after a small group of agents start contributing to the public good, other agents decide to contribute as well due to a fear of being punished, and this generates contagion in the network. In contrast to earlier models in the literature, contagion happens fast, as part of the best response of fully rational individuals. The network topology has implications for whether contagion starts and the extent to which it spreads. I find conditions under which an agent decides to be the first to contribute in order to generate contagion in the network, as well as conditions for contribution due to a self-fulfilling fear of social pressure.

Keywords: social pressure; public goods; contagion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C C7 C70 C71 C72 C73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/12/1/4/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/12/1/4/ (text/html)

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:gam:jgames:v:12:y:2021:i:1:p:4-:d:478822

Access Statistics for this article

Games is currently edited by Ms. Susie Huang

More articles in Games from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().