- A-Z
- Jena Economic Resea...
- Volume 1
- Are cooperators eff...
Are cooperators efficiency- or fair-minded? Evidence from a public goods experiment
- Autor(in)
- Erschienen
- 19. September 2007
- Nummer des Discussion-Papers
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2007-067
- Schlagwort(e)
-
conditional cooperation
efficiency
fairness
public goods experiments
value orientations
- Zusammenfsg.
-
We use a two-person public goods experiment to distinguish between efficiency and fairness as possible motivations for cooperative behavior. Asymmetric marginal per capita returns allow only the high-productivity player to increase group payoffs when contributing positive amounts. Asymmetric contributions, however, yield unequal individual payoffs. To assess a priori cooperative preferences, we measure individual ‘value-orientations’ by means of the decomposed game technique. Overall, our results indicate that fairness (or inequality aversion) is more influential than efficiency in driving behavior.
- article pub. typess JER
- Research article
- article languages JER
- Englisch
- article research fields JER
- experimental economics
- JEL-Classification for JER
- A13 - Relation of Economics to Social Values ; C92 - Laboratory, Group Behavior ; D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; H41 - Public Goods