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Erschienen in: Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination 2/2021

17.07.2020 | Regular Article

Participation in and provision of public goods: Does granularity matter?

verfasst von: Ricardo Arlegi, Juan M. Benito-Ostolaza, Nuria Osés-Eraso

Erschienen in: Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination | Ausgabe 2/2021

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Abstract

We use public goods games to experimentally investigate the effect of granularity (i.e., the degree of divisibility of the space of feasible contribution options) on participation (whether individuals contribute or not to the public good) and public goods provision (total contribution to the public good). Our results show that granularity has a significant effect on participation, mainly when coarser granularity eliminates the possibility of small contributions. However, this change in participation does not lead to a significant change in the total provision of the public good. These results are aligned with other experimental field results obtained in the context of donations and fundraising.

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Fußnoten
1
An example of the risk of the provision of a public good depending heavily on large contributors is the withdrawal of US funding to the WHO following the onset the Covid-19 pandemic. Through assessed contributions (dues paid by member countries based on income and population) and voluntary contributions, US contributions account for 20% of the WHO budget (Huang 2020).
 
2
The case of the American Heart Association is similar. The options are $40, $60, $100, $250 or introduce another amount. The anchor point here is $100. This is a general strategy that can be found in other institutions like Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund or the Global Footprint Network.
 
3
Almost-continuous in the case of Gangadharan and Nikiforakis (2009).
 
4
The meaning of “sufficiently small” is explained more explicitly below.
 
5
Among the literature, \(T\infty \) and T2 are known as the continuous and the all-or-nothing settings, respectively Cadsbya and Maynesb 1999; Gangadharan and Nikiforakis 2009; Zhang et al. 2013.
 
6
In treatment \(T\infty \) contributions in fractions of units were permitted, so it was possible to contribute less than 1.
 
7
The participants received a payment of 0.25 Euros per correct answer.
 
8
The Raven test is a nonverbal multiple-choice intelligence test for abstract reasoning, (Raven 1936). In each item of the test, the participant is asked to identify the missing element that completes a visual pattern. This test is recognized as a leading measure of analytic intelligence (see Brañas Garza et al. 2012; Carpenter et al. 1990; Gray and Thompson 2004, for detailed information).
 
9
We thank an anonymous referee for this idea.
 
10
Social planners may possibly have other reasons for facilitating richer spaces of contribution which rely, for example, on theories that defend the intrinsically attainable value of having freedom of choice (see, for example, Sen 1988; Pattanaik and Xu 1990; Gravel 1994; Bartling et al. 2014).
 
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Metadaten
Titel
Participation in and provision of public goods: Does granularity matter?
verfasst von
Ricardo Arlegi
Juan M. Benito-Ostolaza
Nuria Osés-Eraso
Publikationsdatum
17.07.2020
Verlag
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Erschienen in
Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination / Ausgabe 2/2021
Print ISSN: 1860-711X
Elektronische ISSN: 1860-7128
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11403-020-00293-3

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