This paper provides a new way to identify conditional cooperationin a real-time version of the standard voluntary contribution mechanism. Ourapproach avoids most drawbacks of the traditional procedures because it relieson endogenous cycle lengths, which are defined by the number of contributors...

Direct transfers allow heirs to freely use what has been passed on to them. Bequeathers who do not trust their descendants to make proper use of the fortune may prefer investing it in a safe foundation, thereby limiting their descendants’ autonomy. In our study we compare experimentally these...

We study the effects of leadership on the private provision of a public good when group members are heterogeneously endowed. Leadership is implemented as a sequential public goods game where one group member contributes first and all the others follow. Our results show that the presence of a...

We suggest an alternative way of analyzing the canonical Bergstrom-Blume-Varian model of non-cooperative voluntary contributions to a public goodthat avoids the proliferation of dimensions as the number of players is in-creased. We exploit this approach to analyze models in which the...

We exploit the aggregative structure of the public good modelto provide a simple analysis of the voluntary contribution game. Incontrast to the best response function approach, ours avoids the pro-liferation of dimensions as the number of players is increased, andcan readily analyse games...

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...

In a two-person finitely repeated public goods experiment, we use intentionsdata to interpret individual behavior. Based on a random-utilitymodel specification, we develop a relationship between a player's beliefsabout others' behavior and his contributions' plans, and use this relationshipto...

We report on an experiment designed to explore whether allowing individualsto voice their anger prevents costly punishment. For this sake, weuse an ultimatum minigame and distinguish two treatments: one in whichresponders can only accept or reject the o®er, and the other in which theycan also...

In a public goods experiment, subjects can vary over a period of stochasticlength two contribution levels: one is publicly observable (their cheap talkstated intention), while the other is not seen by the others (their secretintention). When the period suddenly stops, participants are restricted...

We examine the effects of leading by example in voluntary contributionexperiments. Leadership is implemented by letting one group membercontribute to the public good before followers do. Such leadershipincreases contributions in comparison to the standard voluntary contributionmechanism,...