0000000000382909
AUTHOR
Tibor Neugebauer
Asset Markets and Equilibrium Selection in Public Goods Games with Provision Points: An Experimental Study
This paper reports the experimental results of implicit pre-play communication on the equilibrium selection in threshold public goods game experiments. The existence of an asset market in which the right to participate in a public goods game with a provision point is auctioned off among a larger group in a first stage is found to enhance significantly the contribution to the provision of the public good in a subsequent second stage. Though, contributions declined on average in the repeated public goods game when subjects were endowed with the right to play, they increased when subjects purchased the right to play. Once reached the Pareto-dominant equilibrium in the second stage, the auction…
ASSET MARKETS AND EQUILIBRIUM SELECTION IN PUBLIC GOODS GAMES WITH PROVISION POINTS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
We report experimental results on the effects that auctioning the right to play a public goods game with a provision point may have on equilibrium selection and individual behavior. Auctioning off such a right among a larger population of players strikingly enhances public good provision. Once public good provision is obtained, the auction price at the preliminary stage increases to its upper limit, dissipating all players’ gains associated with the provision of the public good. Individual deviations from the equilibrium strategy are neither able to force lower market prices nor to affect provision of the public good in subsequent periods. (JEL C72, C92, H41) I. INTRODUCTION Public good pro…
Reciprocity, matching and conditional cooperation in two public goods games
Previous experimental and empirical evidence has identified social preferences in the voluntary provision of public goods. A number of competing models of such preferences have been proposed. We provide evidence for one model of behavior in these games, reciprocity (or matching, or conditional cooperation). Consistent with previous research, we find that participants in the voluntary contribution mechanism attempt to match the contributions of others in their group. We also examine participants in a related game with different equilibria, the weakest-link mechanism. Here, in contrast, participants contribute so as to match the minimum contribution of others in their group.
WITHIN-TEAM COMPETITION IN THE MINIMUM EFFORT COORDINATION GAME
. We report the results of an experiment on a continuous version of the minimum effort coordination game. The introduction of within-team competition significantly increases effort levels relative to a baseline with no competition and increases coordination relative to a secure treatment where the pay-off-dominant equilibrium strategy weakly dominates all other actions. Nonetheless, within-team competition does not prevent subjects from polarizing both in the efficient and the inefficient equilibria.
Mixture and Distribution of Different Water Qualities: An Experiment on Alternative Scenarios Concerning Vertical Structure in a Complex Market
We set up a model of water management, which is inspired by the possibility of mixing water of different qualities. Water is supplied to two types of consumers with different preferences for water quality and quantity. A distributional knot may exist which optimally distributes the supplied water in the downstream market. Different scenarios compare experimentally the advantages of a centralized versus a decentralized resource management. We conducted experiments with 14 markets in three different settings, labelled as "upstream monopoly", "upstream duopoly" and "duopoly-monopsony". We find that a two-product monopoly performs better than the duopoly regarding social welfare and volatility …