Conditional cooperation: new evidence from a public goods experiment

We extend Fischbacher et al.’s (2001) work on conditional cooperation, comparing the results obtained by means of the Strategy Method with behaviour in a classic linear public goods environment. We find that the Strategy Method is roughly adequate as a classification device, but underestimates the contribution of conditional cooperators in the public goods game

Overcontribution and decay in public goods experiments: a test of the heterogeneous agents hypothesis

standard attempts to explain the phenomenon of decaying contribution in repeated linear public goods games are based on a ‘representative agent’ approach, with either selfish or altruist agents and an ‘error’ component. In this paper we try to test by purely experimental means the alternative hypothesis that in experimental public goods games there are at least three types of player: free riders, cooperators, and reciprocators. We try to identify the various types by means of four classification methods, and then play the public goods game with homogeneous groups. We observe that (1) the average contribution level is enhanced in this setting; (2) the decay phenomenon is replicated in groups of ‘pure’ free riders, whereas in groups of cooperative and reciprocating players the contribution is high and fairly stable throughout the game