[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mpg/wpaper/2014_16.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Give Everybody a Voice! The Power of Voting in a Public Goods Experiment with Externalities

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph Engel

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn)

  • Bettina Rockenbach

    (University of Cologne)

Abstract
We study the effect of voting when insiders’ public goods provision may affect passive outsiders. Without voting insiders’ contributions do not differ, regardless of whether outsiders are positively or negatively affected or even unaffected. Voting on the recommended contribution level enhances contributions if outsiders are unaffected and internalizes the negative externality by lowering contributions when outsiders are negatively affected. Remarkably, voting does not increase contributions when it would be most desirable, i.e. with a positive externality. Here, participants vote for high contributions, yet compliance is poor. Unfavorable payoff comparisons to the outsiders that gain a windfall profit drive contributions down.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph Engel & Bettina Rockenbach, 2014. "Give Everybody a Voice! The Power of Voting in a Public Goods Experiment with Externalities," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2014_16, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2014_16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2014_16online.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Walker, James M, et al, 2000. "Collective Choice in the Commons: Experimental Results on Proposed Allocation Rules and Votes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(460), pages 212-234, January.
    2. Kreps, David M. & Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Rational cooperation in the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 245-252, August.
    3. Andreoni, James, 1988. "Why free ride? : Strategies and learning in public goods experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 291-304, December.
    4. Julian Rauchdobler & Rupert Sausgruber & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2010. "Voting on Thresholds for Public Goods: Experimental Evidence," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 66(1), pages 34-64, March.
    5. Vanberg, Christoph, 2010. "Voting on a sharing norm in a dictator game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 285-292, June.
    6. Stephan Kroll & Todd L. Cherry & Jason F. Shogren, 2007. "Voting, Punishment, And Public Goods," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(3), pages 557-570, July.
    7. Cinyabuguma, Matthias & Page, Talbot & Putterman, Louis, 2005. "Cooperation under the threat of expulsion in a public goods experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(8), pages 1421-1435, August.
    8. Jana Vyrastekova & Daan van Soest, 2003. "Centralized Common-Pool Management and Local Community Participation," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 79(4), pages 500-514.
    9. Roger Hewett & Charles A. Holt & Georgia Kosmopoulou & Christine Kymn & Cheryl X. Long & Shabnam Mousavi & Sudipta Sarangi, 2005. "A Classroom Exercise: Voting by Ballots and Feet," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(1), pages 253-263, July.
    10. Baltagi, Badi H. & Bresson, Georges & Pirotte, Alain, 2003. "Fixed effects, random effects or Hausman-Taylor?: A pretest estimator," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 361-369, June.
    11. Juergen Huber & Martin Shubik & Shyam Sunder, 2011. "Financing of Public Goods through Taxation in a General Equilibrium Economy: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1830, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    12. Charness, Gary & Yang, Chun-Lei, 2014. "Starting small toward voluntary formation of efficient large groups in public goods provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 119-132.
    13. Ingrid Wahl & Stephan Muehlbacher & Erich Kirchler, 2010. "The Impact of Voting on Tax Payments," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 144-158, February.
    14. Marchese, Carla & Montefiori, Marcello, 2011. "Strategy versus sincerity in mean voting," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 93-102, February.
    15. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    16. Alessandro Innocenti & Chiara Rapallini, 2011. "Voting by Ballots and Feet in the Laboratory," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 70(1), pages 3-24, January.
    17. Feige, Christian & Ehrhart, Karl-Martin & Krämer, Jan, 2014. "Voting on contributions to a threshold public goods game: An experimental investigation," Working Paper Series in Economics 60, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    18. Putterman, Louis & Tyran, Jean-Robert & Kamei, Kenju, 2011. "Public goods and voting on formal sanction schemes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1213-1222, October.
    19. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    20. Werner Güth & Rupert Sausgruber, 2008. "Voting between tax regimes to fund a public good," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 287-303, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rustam Romaniuc & Gregory J. DeAngelo & Dimitri Dubois & Bryan C. McCannon, 2019. "Intergroup inequality and the breakdown of prosociality," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 285-303, September.
    2. Dekel, Sagi & Fischer, Sven & Zultan, Ro’i, 2017. "Potential Pareto Public Goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 87-96.
    3. Bryan C. McCannon & Paul Walker, 2020. "Individual Competence and Committee Decision Making: Experimental Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(4), pages 1531-1558, April.
    4. DeAngelo, Gregory J. & Dubois, Dimitri & Romaniuc, Rustam, 2020. "The perils of democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 328-340.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jacquemet, Nicolas & Luchini, Stéphane & Malézieux, Antoine, 2021. "Does voting on tax fund destination imply a direct democracy effect?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    2. Christian Grund & Christine Harbring & Kirsten Thommes & Katja Rebecca Tilkes, 2020. "Decisions on Extending Group Membership—Evidence from a Public Good Experiment," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-27, December.
    3. Gürerk, Özgür & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Rockenbach, Bettina, 2014. "On cooperation in open communities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 220-230.
    4. Kamei, Kenju, 2016. "Information Disclosure and Cooperation in a Finitely-repeated Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 75100, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Tjaša Bjedov & Simon Lapointe & Thierry Madiès & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "Does decentralization of decisions increase the stability of large groups?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(4), pages 681-716, December.
    6. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kocher, Martin G. & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Equality, equity and incentives: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 32-51.
    7. Kamei, Kenju, 2019. "Cooperation and Endogenous Repetition in an Infinitely Repeated Social Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 92097, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Cadigan, John & Wayland, Patrick T. & Schmitt, Pamela & Swope, Kurtis, 2011. "An experimental dynamic public goods game with carryover," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 523-531.
    9. Strømland, Eirik & Tjøtta, Sigve & Torsvik, Gaute, 2018. "Mutual choice of partner and communication in a repeated prisoner's dilemma," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 12-23.
    10. Dickinson, David L. & Masclet, David & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2015. "Norm enforcement in social dilemmas: An experiment with police commissioners," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 74-85.
    11. Kenju Kamei, 2019. "Cooperation and endogenous repetition in an infinitely repeated social dilemma," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(3), pages 797-834, September.
    12. Daniele Nosenzo & Fabio Tufano, 2015. "Entry or Exit? The Effect of Voluntary Participation on Cooperation," Discussion Papers 2015-20, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    13. Chen, Josie I, 2014. "Obedience to Rules with Mild Sanctions: The Roles of Peer Punishment and Voting," MPRA Paper 55364, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Strømland, Eirik & Tjøtta, Sigve & Torsvik, Gaute, 2016. "Reciprocity evolving: partner choice and communication in a repeated prisoner’s dilemma," Working Papers in Economics 01/16, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    15. Feige, Christian & Ehrhart, Karl-Martin, 2015. "Voting and transfer payments in a threshold public goods game," Working Paper Series in Economics 73, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    16. Andrea Robbett, 2016. "Community dynamics in the lab," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(3), pages 543-568, March.
    17. Astrid Dannenberg & Carlo Gallier, 2020. "The choice of institutions to solve cooperation problems: a survey of experimental research," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(3), pages 716-749, September.
    18. Bouma, J.A. & Nguyen, Binh & van der Heijden, Eline & Dijk, J.J., 2018. "Analysing Group Contract Design Using a Lab and a Lab-in-the-Field Threshold Public Good Experiment," Discussion Paper 2018-049, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    19. Bracht, Juergen & Feltovich, Nick, 2009. "Whatever you say, your reputation precedes you: Observation and cheap talk in the trust game," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1036-1044, October.
    20. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Manzoni, Elena & Nagel, Rosemarie, 2019. "Belief-dependent preferences and reputation: Experimental analysis of a repeated trust game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 341-360.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    experiment; Public Good; externality; voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2014_16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marc Martin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mppggde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.