One important determinant of voluntary contributions to public goods is the value of the public good relative to that of the forgone private good. Isaac, Walker and Thomas (1984) formalized this relation in the Marginal Per Capita Return (MPCR) and demonstrated its influence on the provision of...

Abstract: The authors present a classroom public goods experiment on the basis of a provision-point mechanism (PPM), where subjects must make an all or nothing decision about providing the public good. As a teaching tool, this design is superior to traditional prisoner's dilemma games because it...