We adopt a mixed methods approach to investigate whether and how heterogeneity in individual returns to a public good affects contributions. We engage smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka in: a one-shot, framed, lab-in-the-field experiment, within which the farmers' rates of return to the public...

We investigate situations in which players make costly contributions as group members in a group conflict, and at the same time engage in contest with fellow group members to appropriate the possible reward. We introduce within group power asymmetry and complementarity in members'efforts, and...

It has been argued that accountability is a public good that only citizens can provide. Governments can put institutions in place that allow citizens to hold public servants to account, but citizens must participate in those institutions if accountability is to be achieved. Thus, citizens face a...

This paper looks at the financial resources of trades unions in the UK, both updating previous work and attempting to understand the management of first and second order collective action problems. First order problems refer to the problems of initiating collective action and second order...

We test whether a descriptive norm-nudge is a suitable policy tool to increase cooperation in a social dilemma when decisions are taken by teams, not individuals. 10 Each team in our experiment comes from a different fishing boat at Lake Victoria, Tanzania. The provision of a norm-nudge is...

We study the role of inter-group differences in the emergence of conflict. In our setting, two groups compete for the right to allocate societys resources, and we allow for costly intergroup mobility. The winning group offers an allocation, that the opposition can either accept, or reject and...

Lecture on the first SFB/TR 15 meeting, Gummersbach, July, 18 - 20, 2004: This paper models the trade-off between production and appropriation in the presence of simultaneous inter- and intra-group conflicts. The model exhibits a ' group cohesion effect ': if the contest between the groups...

Due to incomplete contracts, efficiency of an organization depends on willingness of individuals to take non-selfish actions, such as cooperating when there is no incentive to do so or punishing inefficient actions by others. Organizations also constitute a social boundary, or group. We...

We study the role of an enforcer in the effectiveness of selective incentives in solving the collective action problem when groups take part in a contest. Cost functions exhibit constant elasticity of marginal effort costs. If prize valuations are homogeneous, our source of heterogeneity induces...