Social Learning and Voluntary Cooperation Among Like-Minded People

Gächter, Simon; Thöni, Christian

doi:10.2139/ssrn.632964

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Social Learning and Voluntary Cooperation Among Like-Minded People

University of St. Gallen Discussion Paper No. 2004-12

19 Pages Posted: 16 Dec 2004

See all articles by Simon Gächter

Simon Gächter

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Christian Thöni

University of Lausanne

Date Written: December 2004

Abstract

Many people contribute to public goods but stop doing so once they experience free riding. We test the hypothesis that groups whose members know that they are composed only of 'like-minded' cooperators are able to maintain a higher cooperation level than the most cooperative, randomly-composed groups. Our experiments confirm this hypothesis. We also predict that groups of 'like-minded' free riders do not cooperate. Yet, we find a high level of strategic cooperation that eventually collapses. Our results underscore the importance of group composition and social learning by heterogeneously motivated agents to understand the dynamics of cooperation and free riding.

Keywords: Public goods, social learning, conditional cooperation, free riding, experiments

JEL Classification: C91, H41, D23, C72

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Gächter, Simon and Thöni, Christian, Social Learning and Voluntary Cooperation Among Like-Minded People (December 2004). University of St. Gallen Discussion Paper No. 2004-12, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=632964 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.632964