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American Economic Review Vol. 100 No. 1 2010

Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments

Urs Fischbacher1; Simon Gächter2

1 University of Konstanz, PO Box D 131, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany; Thurgau Institute of Economics, Hauptstrasse 90, CH-8280, Kreuzlingen. · 2 CESifo, IZA, and University of Nottingham, School of Economics, Sir Clive Granger Building, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom.

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Abstract

One lingering puzzle is why voluntary contributions to public goods decline over time in experimental and real-world settings. We show that the decline of cooperation is driven by individual preferences for imperfect conditional cooperation. Many people's desire to contribute less than others, rather than changing beliefs of what others will contribute over time or people's heterogeneity in preferences makes voluntary cooperation fragile. Universal free riding thus eventually emerges, despite the fact that most people are not selfish. (D12, D 83, H41, Z13)

DOI
10.1257/aer.100.1.541
Volume
100
Issue
1
Pages
541-556
Language
en
Sources
crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex

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