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Cooperation under risk and ambiguity

Author

Listed:
  • Björk, Lisa

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Kocher, Martin

    (Department of Economics, LMU Munich)

  • Martinsson, Peter

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Nam Khanh, Pham

    (School of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics)

Abstract

The return from investments in public goods is almost always uncertain, in contrast to the most common setup in the existing empirical literature. We study the impact of natural uncertainty on cooperation in a social dilemma by conducting a public goods experiment in the laboratory in which the marginal return to contributions is either deterministic, risky (known probabilities) or ambiguous (unknown probabilities). Our design allows us to make inferences on dierences in cooperative attitudes, beliefs, and one-shot as well as repeated contributions to the public good under the three regimes. Interestingly, we do not find that natural uncertainty has a significant impact on the inclination to cooperate, neither on the beliefs of others nor on actual contribution decisions. Our results support the generalizability of previous experimental results based on deterministic settings. From a behavioural point of view, it appears that strategic uncertainty overshadows natural uncertainty in social dilemmas.

Suggested Citation

  • Björk, Lisa & Kocher, Martin & Martinsson, Peter & Nam Khanh, Pham, 2016. "Cooperation under risk and ambiguity," Working Papers in Economics 683, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0683
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/50814
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Luigi Butera & Philip J Grossman & Daniel Houser & John A List & Marie Claire Villeval, 2020. "A New Mechanism to Alleviate the Crises of Confidence in Science With An Application to the Public Goods GameA Review," Working Papers halshs-02512932, HAL.
    3. Luigi Butera & Philip Grossman & Daniel Houser & John List & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2020. "A New Mechanism to Alleviate the Crises of Confidence in Science - With an Application to the Public Goods Game," Artefactual Field Experiments 00684, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Nardi, Chiara & Pizziol, Veronica, 2024. "Cooperation is unaffected by the threat of severe adverse events in public goods games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    5. Emma von Essen & Marieke Huysentruyt & Topi Miettinen, 2020. "Exploration in Teams and the Encouragement Effect: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5861-5885, December.
    6. Vincent Théroude & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2017. "Cooperation in a risky world," Working Papers halshs-01443917, HAL.
    7. Jana Freundt & Andreas Lange, 2019. "On the Impact of Risky Private and Public Returns in the Private Provision of Public Goods - The Case of Social Investments," CESifo Working Paper Series 7458, CESifo.
    8. Emma von Essen & Marieke Huysentruyt & Topi Miettinen, 2019. "Exploration in Teams and the Encouragement Effect: Theory and Evidence," Economics Working Papers 2019-10, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    9. Zack Dorner & Steven Tucker & Gazi Hassan, 2021. "A veil of ignorance: uncertain and ambiguous individual productivity supports stable contributions to a public good," Working Papers in Economics 21/01, University of Waikato.
    10. Dorner, Zack & Tucker, Steven & Hassan, Gazi M, 2024. "Heterogeneous productivity stabilizes public good contributions under certainty, uncertainty and ambiguity," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    11. Angela Stefania Bergantino & Sara Gil‐Gallen & Andrea Morone, 2023. "Do risk and competition trigger conditional cooperation? Evidence from public good experiments," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(1), pages 39-73, March.
    12. Vincent Théroude & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2017. "Cooperation in a risky world," Working Papers 1704, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public good; conditional cooperation; experiment; uncertainty; risk; ambiguity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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