When Identifying Contributors is Costly: An Experiment on Public Goods

Anya Samek and Roman M. Sheremeta

Southern Economic Journal, 2016, vol. 82, issue 3, 801-808

Abstract: Studies show that identifying contributors increases contributions to public goods. In practice, viewing identifiable information is costly, which may discourage people from accessing it. We design a public goods experiment in which participants can pay to view information about identities and contributions of group members. We compare this to a treatment in which there is no identifiable information, and a treatment in which all contributors are identified. Our main findings are that: (i) contributions in the treatment with costly information are as high as those in the treatment with free information, (ii) participants rarely choose to view the information, and (iii) being a high contributor is correlated with choosing to view information about others.

Date: 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12116

Related works:
Working Paper: When Identifying Contributors is Costly: An Experiment on Public Goods (2015)
Working Paper: When Identifying Contributors is Costly: An Experiment on Public Goods (2014)
Working Paper: When Identifying Contributors is Costly: An Experiment on Public Goods (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:soecon:v:82:y:2016:i:3:p:801-808

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