Identities, selection, and contributions in a public-goods game

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Charness, Gary; Cobo-Reyes, Ramon; Jimenez, Natalia
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; University of Granada; University of Exeter; Middlesex University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2014.05.002
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 322-338
• 关键词: Experiment; IDENTITY; Team building; Public goods contributions

摘要

The notions of one's social identity and group membership have recently become topics for economic theory and experiments, and recent research has shown the importance of identity in a wide array of economic environments. But predictions are unclear when there is some trade-off between one's identity (e.g., race, gender, handedness) and potential monetary considerations. We conduct a public-goods experiment in which we permit endogenous group-formation. In a 2 x 2 design, we vary whether people participate in a team-building exercise and whether some people receive an endowment twice as much as others receive. We find that when both identity and financial considerations are present, high-endowment participants are strongly attracted to each other, with one's word-task-group affiliation eclipsed by the opportunity to earn more. Nevertheless, the team-building exercise greatly increases the level of contribution whether or not one is linked to people from one's team-building exercise. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.