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...

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...

Similar to Levati and Neugebauer (2001), a clock is used by which participantscan vary their individual contributions for voluntarily providing apublic good. As time goes by, participants either in(de)crease their contributiongradually or keep it constant. Groups of two poorly and two...

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 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...

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...

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...

Unlike previous attempts to implement cooperation in a prisoners’ dilemma gamewith an infinite horizon in the laboratory, we focus on extended prisoners’ dilemmagames in which a second (pure strategy) equilibrium allows for voluntary cooperationin all but the last round. Our four main...

We investigate experimentally whether entry costs have an impact on the evolutionof cooperation in a social dilemma game. In particular, subjects repeatedly playthe so-called takeover game with anonymous partners randomly drawn from a fixedpopulation of participants. The game represents a social...

It is commonly accepted that face-to-face communication inducescooperation. The experiment disentangles communication and socialeffect (replication of Roth, 1995) and examines the components of thesocial effect with the help of unilateral communication. Results suggestthat separate processes,...