I analyse a group contest in which groups decide over two dimensions of membership-exclusivity: whether a member is allowed to join the group at all, and whether this member is allowed to join another group as well. If the prize is mostly private, group leaders do not offer membership in...

Many people contribute to public goods but stop doing so once they experience free riding. We test the hypothesis that groups whose members know that they are composed only of 'like-minded' cooperators are able to maintain a higher cooperation level than the most cooperative, randomly-composed...

In this paper we show experimentally that conditional cooperation, a phenomenon described in the private provision of public goods, is also present in group contests, where participants’ contributions to their group performance partially determines if they overcome a rival group. This...

A central authority possessing tax and expenditure responsibilities can readily provide an efficient level of a public good. Absent a central authority, the case with climate change mitigation, voluntary arrangements must replace coercive arrangements; significant under-provision must be...

Social dilemmas are central to human society. Depletion of natural resources, climate protection, security of energy supply, and workplace collaborations are all examples of social dilemmas. Since cooperative behaviour in a social dilemma is individually costly, Nash equilibrium predicts that...

We study the effect of group size on cooperation in voluntary contribution mechanism games. As in previous experiments, we study four- and eight-person groups in high and low marginal per capita return (MPCR) conditions. We find a positive effect of group size in the low MPCR condition, as in...

Based on contribution patterns to parties in Germany and elsewhere, we suggest that European democracies should use a mixed system where private funding can play a larger role than public funding. In Germany the high level of public funding for parties can be reduced without expecting...

What explains variation in the degree of regulation across US states and industries? We examine cross-sectional variation in state government regulation facing 81 three-digit NAICS industries by matching novel data on regulatory restrictions at the state-industry level with data on...

What explains variation in the degree of regulation across US states and industries? We examine cross- sectional variation in state government regulation facing 81 3-digit North American Industry Classification System industries by matching novel data on regulatory restrictions at the...

People often sacrifice their self-interest for a group to which they belong, even when outsiders are harmed so that the sacrifice has no net benefit. Two experiments (conducted on the World Wide Web) suggest that people do this, in part, because they think that cooperation on behalf of the group...