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Conditional Cooperation and Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods
Author(s) -
Keser Claudia,
Van Winden Frans
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.725
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1467-9442
pISSN - 0347-0520
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9442.00182
Subject(s) - public good , economics , turnover , public goods game , psychology , microeconomics , period (music) , social psychology , physics , management , acoustics
We compare a partners condition , where the same small group of subjects plays a repeated public good game, to a strangers condition , where subjects play this game in changing group formations. From the first period onward, subjects in the partners condition contribute significantly more to the public good than subjects in the strangers condition. Strangers' contributions show continual decay, while partners' contributions fluctuate on a high level prior to decreasing in the final periods. We interpret subjects' behaviour in terms of conditional cooperation which is characterized by both future‐oriented and reactive behaviour. JEL classifications: C 91; C 92; H 41