We investigate the role of endowment heterogeneity in a local and global public goods setting with multiple group membership and examine the effect of temporal role reversal on cooperation decisions. Subjects can contribute to a global public good which benefits all subjects and two local public...

While it is well established that individuals and groups make different economic decisions, the reasons for the behavioral differences are still not fully understood. We experimentally compare individual and group behavior in a competitive setting where cheating can be used to outperform the...

Previous research shows that collective action to avoid a catastrophic threshold, such as a climate "tipping point", is unaffected by uncertainty about the impact of crossing the threshold but that collective action collapses if the location of the threshold is uncertain. Theory suggests that...

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...

We study endogenous group formation in tournaments employing experimental three-player contests. We find that players in endogenously formed alliances cope better with the moral hazard problem in groups than players who are forced into an alliance. Also, players who are committed to expending...

Previous research has shown that opportunities for two-sided partner choice in finitely repeated social dilemma games can promote cooperation through a combination of sorting and opportunistic signaling, with late period defections by selfish players causing an end-game decline. How such...

We study the stability of voluntary cooperation in response to varying rates at which a group grows. Using a laboratory public-good game with voluntary contributions and economies of scale, we construct a situation in which expanding a group's size yields potential efficiency gains, but only if...

We use experimental methods to investigate whether pledges of commitment can improve cooperation in endogenously-formed partnerships facing a social dilemma. Treatments vary in terms of the individual's: (1) opportunity to commit to their partner; (2) the cost of dissolving committed...

A lot of economic and social situations can be described as contests in which agents need to distribute scare resources. Individual behavior plays an important role within these situations, while identity strongly impacts on behavior. This paper asks how group identity impacts the provision of a...