Critical mass in collective action

Boris Ginzburg, Jose-Alberto Guerra and Warn N. Lekfuangfu ()
Additional contact information
Warn N. Lekfuangfu: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

No 20819, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: Using a laboratory experiment, we study the incentives of individuals to contribute to a public good that is provided if and only if the fraction of contributors reaches a certain threshold. We jointly vary the size of the group, the cost of contributing, the required threshold, and the framing of contributions (giving to the common pool, or not taking from the common pool). We find that a higher threshold makes individuals more likely to contribute. The effect is strong enough that in a small group, raising the required threshold increases the probability that the public good is provided. In larger groups, however, the effect disappears. At the same time, we do not find a consistent effect of framing on the probability of contributing or on the likelihood of success.

Keywords: threshold public goods; critical mass; framing effect; laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D91 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2023-08-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/69433/dcede2023-21.pdf Full text (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Critical Mass in Collective Action (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:020819

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Universidad De Los Andes-Cede ().