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Effect of an audience in public goods provision

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Emel Filiz-Ozbay  and
Erkut Y. Ozbay
Emel Filiz-Ozbay*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Maryland, 3114 Tydings Hall, 20742 College Park, MD, USA
Erkut Y. Ozbay*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Maryland, 3114 Tydings Hall, 20742 College Park, MD, USA
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper investigates a novel public goods game where contributions to the public goods require effort that is observable. When the players are observed, they exert more effort to contribute to the public goods, and free-riding diminishes significantly compared to the no observer case. These effects are absent when no effort is required in order to contribute to the public goods. Furthermore, in the presence of an audience, the contributions to the public goods do not diminish when the game is repeated in the effort-required environment. Being observed does not affect the performance of the players if there is no strategic aspect of the game, in other words, when they play a private goods game. These results indicate that an individual wants to avoid appearing lazy when her effort helps the society.

Keywords

Public goodsObservable effortExperimentSocial image

JEL classification

A13: Relation of Economics to Social Values D64: Altruism • Philanthropy • Intergenerational Transfers C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 200 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-013-9363-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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