Context and Voluntary Contributions: An Experimental Analysis of Communication, Voting, and Status Quo Bias

Kent Messer (), Harry Kaiser and William D. Schulze

No 127076, Working Papers from Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management

Abstract: This research examines the effect of three factors—cheap talk, voting, and the status quo of the donation—on the voluntary contribution mechanism (VCM). Using undergraduate business students, results show that contributions as a percent of income in the last of ten rounds range from 18% for the case of no cheap talk, no voting, and a status quo of not giving to 94% in the case where all three contexts are combined. These results demonstrate the surprising result that context can make the simple VCM produce sustained efficiencies similar to incentive compatible public-good mechanisms.

Keywords: Institutional; and; Behavioral; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/127076/files/Cornell_Dyson_wp0507.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ags:cudawp:127076

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.127076

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().