Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-g8tfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T18:33:02.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

One bad apple? Heterogeneity and information in public good provision

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Angela C. M. de Oliveira ,
Rachel T. A. Croson  and
Catherine Eckel
Angela C. M. de Oliveira*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Resource Economics, 203 Stockbridge Hall, 80 Campus Center Way, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
Rachel T. A. Croson
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Arlington Dean, College of Business, Box 19377, 701 S. West Street, Room 334, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
Catherine Eckel
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University, Department of Economics 4228 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4228, USA
*
adeolive@resecon.umass.edu; acm.de.oliveira@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous research demonstrates that individuals vary in their social preferences. Less well-understood is how group composition affects the behavior of different social preference types. Does one bad apple really spoil the bunch? This paper exogenously identifies experimental participants’ social preferences, then systematically assigns individuals to homogeneous or heterogeneous groups to examine the impact of ‘bad apples’ on cooperation and efficiency. Consistent with previous research, we find that groups with more selfish types achieve lower levels of efficiency. We identify two mechanisms for the effect. First, the selfish players contribute less. Second, selfish players induce lower contributions from the conditional cooperators, and this effect increases in the number of selfish players. These results are not sensitive to information about the distribution of types in the group.

Keywords

Public goodsGroup compositionCooperationSocial preference typesHeterogeneityH41C91

Information

Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 18 , Issue 1: Special Issue In Honor of Elinor “Lin” Ostrom , March 2015 , pp. 116 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl. Donny Osmond.

References

Ahn, TK, Ostrom, E, & Walker, JM (2003). Heterogeneous preferences and collective action. Public Choice, 117(3–4), 295–314. 10.1023/B:PUCH.0000003739.54365.fdCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andreoni, J Kolm, SC, & Ythier, M (2006). Philanthropy. Handbook of the economics of giving, altruism and reciprocity, Amsterdam: Elsevier 1201–1269.Google Scholar
Andreoni, J, Croson, R Plott, CR, & Smith, VL (2008). Partners versus strangers: Random rematching in public goods experiments. Handbook of experimental economics results, Amsterdam: North-Holland 776–783. 10.1016/S1574-0722(07)00082-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashley, R, Ball, S, & Eckel, C (2010). Motives for giving: A reanalysis of two classic public goods experiments. Southern Economic Journal, 77(1), 15–26. 10.4284/sej.2010.77.1.15CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axelrod, R (1984). The evolution of cooperation, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Boyd, R, & Richerson, PJ (2004). The origin and evolution of cultures, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brandts, J, & Schram, A (2001). Cooperation and noise in public goods experiments: Applying the contribution function approach. Journal of Public Economics, 79(2), 399–427. 10.1016/S0047-2727(99)00120-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burlando, RM, & Guala, F (2005). Heterogeneous agents in public goods experiments. Experimental Economics, 8(1), 35–54. 10.1007/s10683-005-0436-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, C, Fehr, E Henrich, J, Boyd, R, Bowles, S, Camerer, C, Fehr, E, & Gintis, H (2004). measuring social norms and preferences using experimental games: A guide for social scientists. Foundations of human sociality: Economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 55–95. 10.1093/0199262055.003.0003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croson, RTA (1996). Partners and strangers revisited. Economics Letters, 53(1), 25–32. 10.1016/S0165-1765(97)82136-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croson, RTA (2007). Theories of commitment, altruism and reciprocity: Evidence from linear public goods games. Economic Inquiry, 45(2), 199–216. 10.1111/j.1465-7295.2006.00006.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dietz, T, Ostrom, E, & Stern, PC (2003). The struggle to govern the commons. Science, 302(5652), 1907–1912. 10.1126/science.1091015CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fischbacher, U, & Gachter, S (2010). Social preferences, beliefs, and the dynamics of free riding in public good experiments. American Economics ReviewS, 100(1), 541–556. 10.1257/aer.100.1.541CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischbacher, U, Gächter, S, & Fehr, E (2001). Are people conditionally cooperative? evidence from a public goods experiment. Economics Letters, 71(3), 397–404. 10.1016/S0165-1765(01)00394-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gächter, S, & Thöni, C (2005). Social learning and voluntary cooperation among like-minded people. Journal of the European Economic Association, 3(2–3), 303–314. 10.1162/1542476054473323CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunnthorsdottir, A, Houser, D, & McCabe, K (2007). Disposition, history and contributions in public goods experiments. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 62(2), 304–315. 10.1016/j.jebo.2005.03.008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunnthorsdottir, A., Vragov, R., & McCabe, K. (2007). The meritocracy as a mechanism to overcome social dilemmas. Munich Personal RePEc Archive No. 2454.Google Scholar
Herrmann, B, & Thöni, C (2009). Measuring conditional cooperation: A replication study in Russia. Experimental Economics, 12(1), 87–92. 10.1007/s10683-008-9197-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kocher, M. (2006). Conditional cooperation in public goods experiments and its behavioral foundations. Working Paper.Google Scholar
Kurzban, R, & Houser, D (2001). Individual differences in cooperation in a circular public goods game. European Journal of Personality, 15(S1), S37–S52. 10.1002/per.420CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurzban, R, & Houser, D (2005). Experiments investigating cooperative types in humans: A complement to evolutionary theory and simulations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(5), 1803–1807. 10.1073/pnas.0408759102CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledyard, J Roth, AE, & Kagel, JH (1995). Public goods: A survey of experimental research. The handbook of experimental economics, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Martinsson, P., Villegas-Palacio, C., & Woolbrant, C. (2009). Conditional cooperation and social group-experimental results from Colombia. Environment for Development Discussion Paper Series No. EfD DP 09–16.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 10.1017/CBO9780511807763CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E (2000). Collective action and the evolution of social norms. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3), 137–158. 10.1257/jep.14.3.137CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E, Burger, J, Field, CB, Norgaard, RB, & Policansky, D (1999). Revisiting the commons: Local lessons, global challenges. Science, 284(5412), 278–282. 10.1126/science.284.5412.278CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Page, T, Putterman, L, & Unel, B (2005). Voluntary association in public goods experiments: Reciprocity, mimicry and efficiency. The Economic Journal, 115(506), 1032–1053. 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2005.01031.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richerson, PJ, & Boyd, R (2008). Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ross, L, & Nisbett, RE (1991). The person and the situation: Perspectives from social psychology, New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Zetland, D., & Della Giusta, M. (2011). Focal points, gender norms and reciprocation in public good games. Working Paper.Google Scholar