Leaders as Role Models for the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods

Simon Gächter and Elke Renner

No 8580, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate the link between leadership, beliefs and pro-social behavior. This link is interesting because field evidence suggests that people's behavior in domains like charitable giving, tax evasion, corporate culture and corruption is influenced by leaders (CEOs, politicians) and beliefs about others' behavior. Our framework is an experimental public goods game with a leader. We find that leaders strongly shape their followers' initial beliefs and contributions. In later rounds, followers put more weight on other followers' past behavior than on the leader's current action. This creates a path dependency the leader can hardly correct. We discuss the implications for understanding belief effects in naturally occurring situations.

Keywords: management; public policy; path dependency; public goods; experiments; beliefs; leadership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C90 H41 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published - revised version published as 'Leaders as role models and 'belief managers' in social dilemmas' in: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization , 2018, 154, 321-334

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Related works:
Working Paper: Leaders as Role Models for the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods (2014)
Working Paper: Leaders as Role Models for the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods (2014)
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