IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v130y2021icp179-195.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pledge-and-review in the laboratory

Author

Listed:
  • Lippert, Steffen
  • Tremewan, James

Abstract

We perform a laboratory test of Pledge-and-Review bargaining, implementing a simplified version of the model analysed in Harstad (2021a). In theory, this institution should increase contributions to a public good only if there is uncertainty over the value of possible future payoffs. In contrast, we find that Pledge-and-Review increases efficiency in all the settings we investigate, and that the improvement is most persistent in our setting without uncertainty. Our results suggest that the Pledge-and-Review institution may be useful, even without uncertainty, as it allows conditional cooperators to test, risk free, the cooperativeness of their partners.

Suggested Citation

  • Lippert, Steffen & Tremewan, James, 2021. "Pledge-and-review in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 179-195.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:130:y:2021:i:c:p:179-195
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2021.08.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825621000993
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2021.08.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Astrid Dannenberg & Carlo Gallier, 2019. "The Choice of Institutions to Solve Cooperation Problems: A Survey of Experimental Research," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201911, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    2. Jordi Brandts & Gary Charness, 2011. "The strategy versus the direct-response method: a first survey of experimental comparisons," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(3), pages 375-398, September.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    4. Jennifer Zelmer, 2003. "Linear Public Goods Experiments: A Meta-Analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(3), pages 299-310, November.
    5. Bård Harstad, 2016. "The Dynamics Of Climate Agreements," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 719-752, June.
    6. Marco Battaglini & Bård Harstad, 2016. "Participation and Duration of Environmental Agreements," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 160-204.
    7. Miller, Luis & Montero, Maria & Vanberg, Christoph, 2018. "Legislative bargaining with heterogeneous disagreement values: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 60-92.
    8. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    9. Hargreaves Heap, Shaun P. & Ramalingam, Abhijit & Stoddard, Brock V., 2016. "Endowment inequality in public goods games: A re-examination," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 4-7.
    10. Cinyabuguma, Matthias & Page, Talbot & Putterman, Louis, 2005. "Cooperation under the threat of expulsion in a public goods experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(8), pages 1421-1435, August.
    11. Bard Harstad, 2012. "Climate Contracts: A Game of Emissions, Investments, Negotiations, and Renegotiations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1527-1557.
    12. Cherry, Todd L. & Kroll, Stephan & Shogren, Jason F., 2005. "The impact of endowment heterogeneity and origin on public good contributions: evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 357-365, July.
    13. Decker, Torsten & Stiehler, Andreas & Strobel, Martin, 2002. "A comparison of punishment rules in repeated public good games: An experimental study," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 2002,71, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    14. Kenneth Chan & Stuart Mestelman & Robert Moir & R. Muller, 1999. "Heterogeneity and the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(1), pages 5-30, August.
    15. Fabrice Etilé & Pierre Combris & Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy & Sabrina Teyssier, 2014. "Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-02076872, HAL.
    16. Ambrus, Attila & Greiner, Ben, 2019. "Individual, Dictator, and Democratic punishment in public good games with perfect and imperfect observability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    17. Kenneth S. Chan & Stuart Mestelman & Rob Moir & R. Andrew Muller Moir, 1996. "The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods under Varying Income Distributions," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 54-69, February.
    18. Urs Fischbacher & Simon Gachter, 2010. "Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 541-556, March.
    19. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    20. Heike Hennig-Schmidt & Bernd Irlenbusch & Rainer Michael Rilke & Gari Walkowitz, 2018. "Asymmetric outside options in ultimatum bargaining: a systematic analysis," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 47(1), pages 301-329, March.
    21. Knez Marc J. & Camerer Colin F., 1995. "Outside Options and Social Comparison in Three-Player Ultimatum Game Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 65-94, July.
    22. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2023. "The Preference Survey Module: A Validated Instrument for Measuring Risk, Time, and Social Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 1935-1950, April.
    23. Hennig-Schmidt, Heike & Li, Zhu-Yu & Yang, Chaoliang, 2008. "Why people reject advantageous offers--Non-monotonic strategies in ultimatum bargaining: Evaluating a video experiment run in PR China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 373-384, February.
    24. Prajit Dutta & Roy Radner, 2006. "Population growth and technological change in a global warming model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(2), pages 251-270, October.
    25. Anderson, Lisa R. & Mellor, Jennifer M. & Milyo, Jeffrey, 2008. "Inequality and public good provision: An experimental analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1010-1028, June.
    26. Karl Schlag, 2008. "A new method for constructing exact tests without making any assumptions," Economics Working Papers 1109, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    27. Torsten Decker & Andreas Stiehler & Martin Strobel, 2003. "A Comparison of Punishment Rules in Repeated Public Good Games," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 47(6), pages 751-772, December.
    28. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy & Sabrina Teyssier, 2014. "Heterogeneous reactions to heterogeneity in returns from public goods," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 43(1), pages 195-217, June.
    29. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    30. Roth, Alvin E. & Vesna Prasnikar & Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara & Shmuel Zamir, 1991. "Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1068-1095, December.
    31. Kingsley, David C., 2016. "Endowment heterogeneity and peer punishment in a public good experiment: Cooperation and normative conflict," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 49-61.
    32. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    33. le Sage, Sander & van der Heijden, Eline, 2015. "The Effect of Voting on Contributions in a Public Goods Game," Other publications TiSEM a8688f86-b104-4add-b1bc-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    34. Casari, Marco & Luini, Luigi, 2009. "Cooperation under alternative punishment institutions: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 273-282, August.
    35. Cardenas, Juan-Camilo, 2003. "Real wealth and experimental cooperation: experiments in the field lab," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 263-289, April.
    36. Reischmann, Andreas & Oechssler, Joerg, 2018. "The Binary Conditional Contribution Mechanism for public good provision in dynamic settings — Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 104-115.
    37. Dannenberg, Astrid & Gallier, Carlo, 2019. "The choice of institutions to solve cooperation problems: A survey of experimental research," ZEW Discussion Papers 19-021, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    38. le Sage, Sander & van der Heijden, Eline, 2015. "The Effect of Voting on Contributions in a Public Goods Game," Discussion Paper 2015-039, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    39. Christine L. Exley, 2015. "Excusing Selfishness in Charitable Giving: The Role of Risk," Discussion Papers 15-013, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    40. Kölle, Felix, 2015. "Heterogeneity and cooperation: The role of capability and valuation on public goods provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 120-134.
    41. Nikiforakis, Nikos & Noussair, Charles N. & Wilkening, Tom, 2012. "Normative conflict and feuds: The limits of self-enforcement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 797-807.
    42. Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde & Kröger, Sabine & Seki, Erika, 2020. "Public good production in heterogeneous groups: An experimental analysis on the relation between external return and information," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Harstad, Bård, 2023. "Pledge-and-review bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    2. Harstad, Bård, 2021. "A Theory of Pledge-and-Review Bargaining," Memorandum 5/2022, Oslo University, Department of Economics, revised 21 Jun 2021.
    3. Goeschl, Timo & Soldà, Alice, 2024. "(Un)Trustworthy pledges and cooperation in social dilemmas," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 106-119.
    4. Eichner, Thomas & Schopf, Mark, 2024. "On breadth and depth of climate agreements with pledge-and-review bargaining," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    5. Eichner, Thomas & Schopf, Mark, 2021. "Pledge and Review Bargaining in Environmental Agreements: Kyoto vs. Paris," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242450, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gangadharan, Lata & Nikiforakis, Nikos & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Normative conflict and the limits of self-governance in heterogeneous populations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 143-156.
    2. Gabriele Camera & Lukas Hohl & Rolf Weder, 2023. "Inequality as a barrier to economic integration? An experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(2), pages 383-411, April.
    3. Felix Koelle, 2012. "Heterogeneity and Cooperation in Privileged Groups: The Role of Capability and Valuation on Public Goods Provision," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 03-08, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.
    4. Paetzel, Fabian & Traub, Stefan, 2017. "Skewness-adjusted social preferences: Experimental evidence on the relation between inequality, elite behavior, and economic efficiency," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 130-139.
    5. Martin Kesternich & Andreas Lange & Bodo Sturm, 2018. "On the performance of rule-based contribution schemes under endowment heterogeneity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(1), pages 180-204, March.
    6. Boris Leeuwen & Abhijit Ramalingam & David Rojo Arjona & Arthur Schram, 2019. "Centrality and cooperation in networks," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(1), pages 178-196, March.
    7. Lindokuhle Njozela & Justine Burns & Arnim Langer, 2018. "The Effects of Social Exclusion and Group Heterogeneity on the Provision of Public Goods," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-21, August.
    8. Carlo Gallier & Martin Kesternich & Bodo Sturm, 2017. "Voting for Burden Sharing Rules in Public Goods Games," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(3), pages 535-557, July.
    9. Rod Falvey & Tom Lane & Shravan Luckraz, 2022. "On a mechanism that improves efficiency and reduces inequality in voluntary contribution games," Discussion Papers 2022-15, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    10. Jing Yu & Martin G. Kocher, 2023. "Leading by example in a public goods experiment with benefit heterogeneity," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 685-712, October.
    11. Cox, Caleb A. & Stoddard, Brock, 2024. "Inequality and the allocation of collective goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 756-767.
    12. Jie Chen, 2022. "Carrots and sticks: new evidence in public goods games with heterogeneous groups," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 17(4), pages 1139-1169, October.
    13. Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Müller, Julia & Zitzelsberger, Sonja, 2023. "Asymmetric heterogeneities and the role of transfers in a public goods experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    14. Gangadharan, Lata & Nikiforakis, Nikos & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2015. "Equality Concerns and the Limits of Self-Governance in Heterogeneous Populations," IZA Discussion Papers 9384, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Molis, Elena & Neyse, Levent, 2021. "Exposure to inequality may cause under-provision of public goods: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    16. Andreas Löschel & Dirk Rübbelke, 2014. "On the Voluntary Provision of International Public Goods," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(322), pages 195-204, April.
    17. De Geest, Lawrence R. & Kingsley, David C., 2021. "Norm enforcement with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 403-430.
    18. Kreitmair, Ursula & Bower-Bir, Jacob, 2021. "Too different to solve climate change? Experimental evidence on the effects of production and benefit heterogeneity on collective action," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    19. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kocher, Martin G. & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Equality, equity and incentives: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 32-51.
    20. Markussen, Thomas & Sharma, Smriti & Singhal, Saurabh & Tarp, Finn, 2021. "Inequality, institutions and cooperation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pledge and review; Public goods; Voluntary contributions; Conditional cooperation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:130:y:2021:i:c:p:179-195. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.