In this paper, we investigate the joint influence of empirical and normative expectations on cooperative behavior. We conduct two experimental studies (n = 243) in which we separately elicit (i) behavior in a public goods game and (ii) social norms under the form of normative and empirical...

In today's highly complex economic environment, cooperation among individuals is crucial for organizational and societal success. Most of the situations in which cooperation is required involve costly efforts whose consequences play out over time. Here, we provide a systematic and comprehensive...

We compare voluntary contributions to the financing of a public good in a symmetric setting to those in asymmetric settings, in which four players have different, randomly allocated endowments. We observe that a weak asymmetry in the endowment distribution leads to the same contribution level as...

We experimentally investigate cooperation in privileged groups which according to Olson (1965) are groups in which at least one member has an incentive to supply a positive amount of the public good. More specifically, we analyze group member heterogeneity with respect to two dimensions:...

This paper shows how conflicting normative views of fair contribution rules can be used to design sequential contribution mechanisms to foster human cooperation in heterogeneous populations. Our model predicts that a sequential mechanism which solicits contributions first from wealthy actors...

We compare voluntary contributions to the financing of a public good in a symmetric setting to those in asymmetric settings, in which four players have different, randomly allocated endowments. We observe that a weak asymmetry in the endowment distribution leads to the same contribution level as...