Competition for Status Creates Superstars: an Experiment on Public Good Provision and Network Formation

Boris van Leeuwen (), Theo Offerman and Arthur Schram

Journal of the European Economic Association, 2020, vol. 18, issue 2, 666-707

Abstract: We investigate a mechanism that facilitates the provision of public goods in a network formation game. We show how competition for status encourages a core player to realize efficiency gains for the entire group. In a laboratory experiment we systematically examine the effects of group size and exogenously monetarized status rents. The experimental results provide very clear support for the concept of challenge-freeness, a refinement that predicts when a repeated game equilibrium will be played, and if so which one. Two control treatments allow us to reject the possibility that these observations are driven by social preferences, independently of the competition for status.

Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Working Paper: Competition for status creates superstars: An experiment on public good provision and network formation (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jeurec:v:18:y:2020:i:2:p:666-707.

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