We develop and test a model of social comparison in which individuals gain status through pro-social behavior (competitive altruism) and in which they endogenously choose the reference group and associated reference standard involved in signaling status (reference group selection). In our...

We use a laboratory experiment to identify the impact of risk in the private and public dimensions of social investments. In variants of a public good game, we separate the return a subject’s investment generates for herself vs. the return to others. We find a detrimental effect of risk on...

This paper investigates differences between a default, a recommendation, and a mandatory minimum contribution on private provision of a large scale public good. Their interaction with regulator identity and intrinsic motivation on voluntary contributions is the primary focus. Data are from an...

Policymakers interested in increasing private provision of public goods have been attempting to improve information availability, so as to enhance individuals' ability to make socially responsible choices. Nevertheless, individuals are often observed to contribute to public goods without knowing...

We present controlled experimental evidence on how corruption affects the private provision of public goods. Subjects in our experiment donate to non-profit associations. The associations provide local public goods that benefit all subjects. We compare average contributions between two...

The paper studies in a simple, Downsian model of political competition how the private provision of public goods is affected when it is embedded in a system of democracy and redistributive taxation. Results show that the positive effect of inequality on public goods production, which Olson...

This paper analyzes the private provision of public goods where consumers interact within a fixed network structure and may benefit only from their direct neighbors’ provisions. We present a proof for existence and uniqueness of a Nash equilibrium with general best-reply functions. Our...

Using a simple model with interdependent utilities, we study how social networks influence individual voluntary contributions to the provision of a public good. Departing from the standard model of public good provision, we assume that an agent's utility has two terms: (a) ‘ego'-utility...

This paper considers the problem of private provision of intertemporal public goods with stock effects and shows how the deposit based solution proposed in Gerber and Wichardt (2009) can be modified to apply to this case