An experimental examination of the volunteer's dilemma

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Goeree, Jacob K.; Holt, Charles A.; Smith, Angela M.
• 署名单位: University of New South Wales Sydney; University of Cologne; University of Virginia; James Madison University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.002
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 303-315
• 关键词: Quantal response equilibrium; Volunteer's Dilemma; laboratory experiment; Heterogeneity

摘要

In a volunteer's dilemma, only one volunteer is needed to obtain a benefit for all. Volunteering is costly, and the symmetric Nash equilibrium involves randomization. These predictions have the intuitive property that volunteer rates decline with larger groups, but surprisingly, the probability of obtaining no volunteers is increasing with group size, even as the number of players goes to infinity. These predictions are evaluated in a laboratory experiment with a range of group sizes. Observed volunteer rates are lower with larger groups, as predicted, but the incidence of no-volunteer outcomes declines with group size, in contrast to theory. This reduction in no-volunteer outcomes for large groups can be explained by a one-parameter generalization of the Nash equilibrium that adds quantal response noise due to unobserved random effects. Significant individual heterogeneity in observed volunteer rates motivates the estimation of a heterogeneous equilibrium model with a distribution of propensities for volunteering. (c) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.