The Effect of Voluntary Participation on Cooperation

Daniele Nosenzo and Fabio Tufano

No 2017-12, Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham

Abstract: We study the effects of voluntary participation on cooperation in collective action problems. Voluntary participation may foster cooperation through a mechanism of assortative selection of interaction partners based on false consensus bias, or through a mechanism whereby the decision to not participate can be used as a threat against free-riders. We examine the effectiveness of these mechanisms in a one-shot public goods experiment. Voluntary participation has a positive effect on provision only through the threat of non-participation. Assortative selection of interaction partners seems to play a minor role in our setting, whereas the threat of non-participation is a powerful force to discipline free-riding.

Keywords: collective action; cooperation; voluntary participation; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-exp and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Journal Article: The effect of voluntary participation on cooperation (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:not:notcdx:2017-12

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