This article examines the nature of human behavior in a nested socialdilemma referred to as the Spillover Game. Players are divided into twogroups with positive production interdependencies. Based on theoreticallyderived opportunistic, local, and global optima, our experimental...

We report the results of an experimental study that compares voting mechanismsin the provision of public goods. Subjects can freely decide how much they want tocontribute. Whether the public good is finally provided is decided by a referendumunder full information about all contributions. If...

In this paper we investigate the effects of local interaction in a CPR-like environment.We employ a local interaction model where subjects are allocated alonga circle and only interact with their most direct neighbors. In traditional socialdilemma experiments, the return of one’s actions is...

This paper studies the effect of introducing costly partner selection for the voluntarycontribution to a public good. Subjects participate in six sequences offive rounds of a two-person public good game in partner design. At the end ofeach sequence, subjects can select a new partner out of six...

We consider a society composed of two regions. Each of them pro-vides a public good whose benefits reach beyond local boundaries.In case of decentralization, taxes collected by members of a regionare spent only on that region's public good. In case of centralization, tax receipts from the two...

We apply the property rights theory of Grossman-Hart-Moore in the musicindustry and study the optimal allocation of copyright between the artistswho create music and the labels who promote and distribute it. Digital tech-nology opens up a role for new intermediaries. We …nd that entry of...

In this paper, we study a voluntary contribution mechanism withone-way communication. The relevance of one person’s words is assessedby assigning exogeniously the role of the ‘communicator’ to onegroup member. Contrary to the view that the mutual exchange ofpromises is necessary for the...

One-way communication has been found to substantially increasecontributions in linear voluntary contribution mechanisms. We confirmthe robustness of this result in the presence of income heterogeneity.

Previous research indicates that risky and uncertain marginal returnsfrom the public good significantly lower contributions. This paper presentsexperimental results illustrating that the effects of risk and uncertainty dependon the employed parameterization. Specifically, if the value of the...

Costly signaling of commitment to a group has been proposed as an explanation forparticipation in religion and ritual. But if the signal’s cost is too small, freeriders willsend the signal and behave selfishly later. Effective signaling may then be prohibitivelycostly. If the average level of...