HETEROGENEOUS SOCIAL PREFERENCES AND THE DYNAMICS OF FREE RIDING IN PUBLIC GOOD EXPERIMENTS

Urs Fischbacher and Simon Gaechter ()
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Simon Gaechter: University of Nottingham, School of Economics
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Simon Gächter

No 2008-07, Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham

Abstract: We provide a direct test of the role of social preferences and beliefs in voluntary cooperation and its decline. We elicit individuals’ cooperation preference in one experiment and use them – as well as subjects’ elicited beliefs – to make predictions about contributions to a public good played repeatedly. We find substantial heterogeneity in people’s preferences. With simulation methods based on this data, we show that the decline of cooperation is driven by the fact that most people have a preference to contribute less than others. Belief formation and virtual learning do not contribute to the decline of cooperation. Universal free riding is very likely despite the fact that most people are not selfish.

Keywords: Public goods experiments; social preferences; conditional cooperation; free riding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D64 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-05
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:not:notcdx:2008-07

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