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Leaders as Role Models for the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods

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  • Simon Gaechter
  • Elke Renner
Abstract
We investigate the link between leadership, beliefs and pro-social behavior. This link is interesting because field evidence suggests that people’s behavior in domains like charitable giving, tax evasion, corporate culture and corruption is influenced by leaders (CEOs, politicians) and beliefs about others’ behavior. Our framework is an experimental public goods game with a leader. We find that leaders strongly shape their followers’ initial beliefs and contributions. In later rounds, followers put more weight on other followers’ past behavior than on the leader’s current action. This creates a path dependency the leader can hardly correct. We discuss the implications for understanding belief effects in naturally occurring situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Gaechter & Elke Renner, 2014. "Leaders as Role Models for the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods," CESifo Working Paper Series 5049, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5049
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    Cited by:

    1. Christian Zehnder & Holger Herz & Jean-Philippe Bonardi, 2016. "A Productive Clash of Cultures: Injecting Economics into Leadership Research," CESifo Working Paper Series 6175, CESifo.
    2. Gürerk, Özgür & Lauer, Thomas & Scheuermann, Martin, 2018. "Leadership with individual rewards and punishments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 57-69.
    3. Kosfeld, Michael, 2019. "The Role of Leaders in Inducing and Maintaining Cooperation: The CC Strategy," IZA Discussion Papers 12540, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Eichenseer, Michael & Moser, Johannes, 2018. "Leadership in a Dynamic Public Goods Game: An Experimental Study," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181599, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez & Luis A. Mejia, 2016. "Does corruption affect cooperation? A laboratory experiment," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 25(1), pages 1-19, December.
    6. Wolfgang Buchholz & Todd Sandler, 2017. "Successful Leadership in Global Public Good Provision: Incorporating Behavioural Approaches," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(3), pages 591-607, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    leadership; beliefs; experiments; public goods; path dependency; public policy; management;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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