All It Takes Is One: The Effect of Weakest-Link and Summation Aggregation on Public Good Provision under Threshold Uncertainty

Fredrik Carlsson, Claes Ek and Andreas Lange

No 9457, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We report experimental evidence on the voluntary provision of public goods under threshold uncertainty. By explicitly comparing two prominent technologies, summation and weakest link, we show that uncertainty is particularly detrimental to threshold attainment under weakest link, where low contributions by one subject cannot be compensated by others. In contrast, threshold uncertainty does not affect contributions under summation. We demonstrate non-binding pledges as one mechanism to improve chances of threshold attainment under both technologies, yet in particular under weakest link.

Keywords: public goods; threshold uncertainty; weakest link; coordination; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 H41 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-pub and nep-res
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Working Paper: All it takes is one: The effect of weakest-link and summation aggregation on public good provision under threshold uncertainty (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9457

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