TY - JOUR
T1 - Enforcement of contribution norms in public good games with heterogeneous populations
AU - Reuben, Ernesto
AU - Riedl, Arno
N1 - Funding Information:
✩ We would like to thank an anonymous advisory editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Financial support from the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) through the “Evolution & Behavior” grant 051-12-012 and from the EU-Marie Curie RTN ENABLE (MRTM-CT-2003-505223) is gratefully acknowledged. * Corresponding author at: Department of Economics (AE1), School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (E. Reuben), [email protected] (A. Riedl). 1 For instance, in the western states of the United States, family farms dependent on irrigation vary in annual farm sales from below $100,000 to above $500,000 (“Western Irrigated Agriculture Dataset”. United States Department of Agriculture, July 20, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/ westernirrigation/methods.htm on September 19, 2011).
PY - 2013/1
Y1 - 2013/1
N2 - We investigate the emergence and enforcement of contribution norms to public goods in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. With survey data we demonstrate that uninvolved individuals hold well defined yet conflicting normative views of fair contribution rules related to efficiency, equality, and equity. In the experiment, in the absence of punishment no positive contribution norm is observed and all groups converge towards free-riding. With punishment, strong and stable differences in contributions emerge across group types and individuals in different roles. In some cases these differences result from the emergence of an efficiency norm where all fully contribute. In the cases where full efficiency is not attained, these differences result from the enforcement of different relative contribution norms. Hence, our experimental data show that, even in heterogeneous groups, individuals can overcome the collective action problem inherent in public good games by agreeing on and enforcing a contribution norm.
AB - We investigate the emergence and enforcement of contribution norms to public goods in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. With survey data we demonstrate that uninvolved individuals hold well defined yet conflicting normative views of fair contribution rules related to efficiency, equality, and equity. In the experiment, in the absence of punishment no positive contribution norm is observed and all groups converge towards free-riding. With punishment, strong and stable differences in contributions emerge across group types and individuals in different roles. In some cases these differences result from the emergence of an efficiency norm where all fully contribute. In the cases where full efficiency is not attained, these differences result from the enforcement of different relative contribution norms. Hence, our experimental data show that, even in heterogeneous groups, individuals can overcome the collective action problem inherent in public good games by agreeing on and enforcing a contribution norm.
KW - Cooperation
KW - Heterogeneous groups
KW - Norm enforcement
KW - Public good
KW - Punishment
KW - Social norms
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U2 - 10.1016/j.geb.2012.10.001
DO - 10.1016/j.geb.2012.10.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84867804123
SN - 0899-8256
VL - 77
SP - 122
EP - 137
JO - Games and Economic Behavior
JF - Games and Economic Behavior
IS - 1
ER -