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Donating-selling tradeoffs and the influence of leaders in the environmental goods game

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  • Czap, Hans J.
  • Czap, Natalia V.

Abstract

Contributions to environmental goods are motivated by both pecuniary incentives and environmental consciousness. Public policy often uses financial incentives to encourage contributions. However, individuals often donate their time or money to the environmental cause without such incentives. The purpose of this paper is: (a) to examine the relationship between “donating” (without monetary incentives) and “selling” behavior (motivated by monetary incentives) of individuals in the context of environmental protection and (b) to analyze the influence of a leader on individual contributions to the environmental good. The major results are: (1) there is a tradeoff/substitution between donating and selling for a given level of incentives; (2) donating is much less sensitive to changes in monetary incentives and, furthermore, there is no evidence that the increase in financial incentives to sell will crowd out donations; (3) the changes in contributions by leaders have a significant impact on followers’ behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Czap, Hans J. & Czap, Natalia V., 2011. "Donating-selling tradeoffs and the influence of leaders in the environmental goods game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 743-752.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:40:y:2011:i:6:p:743-752
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2011.08.004
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    Cited by:

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    2. Doruk İriş & Jungmin Lee & Alessandro Tavoni, 2015. "Delegation and public pressure in a threshold public goods game: theory and experimental evidence," GRI Working Papers 186, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    3. He, Yunwen & Zheng, Jie, 2024. "Promoting cooperation by leading: Leader-selection mechanisms in public goods games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Carbon sequestration; Climate change; Environmental good; Followers; Framed experiment; Leadership;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics

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