Playing with the Good Guys - A Public Good Game with Endogenous Group Formation

Abstract:     
In public good games, voluntary contributions tend to start off high and decline as the game is repeated. If high contributors are matched, however, contributions tend to stay high. We propose a formalization predicting that high contributors will self-select into groups committed to charitable giving. Testing this experimentally, we let subjects choose between two group types, where one type donate a fixed amount to a charity. Contributions in these groups stayed high, whereas contributions in the other groups showed the well known declining pattern. One implication is that corporate social responsibility may attract more responsible employees.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 33

Keywords: altruism, conditional, cooperation, self-selection

JEL Classification: D11, D12, D64, H41

working papers series