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Explaining Private Provision of Public Goods by Conditional Cooperation - An Evoltuionary Approach -

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  • Maria Vittoria Levati

Abstract

We adopt an evolutionary approach to investigate whether and when conditional cooperation can explain the voluntary contribution phenomenon often observed in public goods experiments and real life. Formally, conditional cooperation is captured by a regret parameter describing how much an individual regrets to contribute less than average. We find that the evolutionary stability of conditional cooperation depends on what is known about the (individual) regret parameters of other group members.

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  • Maria Vittoria Levati, "undated". "Explaining Private Provision of Public Goods by Conditional Cooperation - An Evoltuionary Approach -," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2002-44, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:esi:discus:2002-44
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Alexis Belianin & Marco Novarese, 2005. "Trust, communication and equlibrium behaviour in public goods," Experimental 0506001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Coralio Ballester & Pablo Brañas-Garza & María Paz Espinosa, 2008. "Peer effects in public contributions: theory and experimental evidence," ThE Papers 08/04, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    public goods game; conditional cooperation; evolutionary stability; informational costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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