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Position uncertainty in a sequential public goods game: an experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib Anwar Open the ORCID record for Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib Anwar [Opens in a new window]  and
Konstantinos Georgalos Open the ORCID record for Konstantinos Georgalos [Opens in a new window]
Chowdhury Mohammad Sakib Anwar*
Affiliation:
Business School, Faculty of Business and Digital Technology, University of Winchester, Winchester SO22 4NR, UK
Konstantinos Georgalos*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract

Gallice and Monzón (Econ J 129(621):2137–2154, 2019) present present a natural environment that sustains full co-operation in one-shot social dilemmas among a finite number of self-interested agents. They demonstrate that in a sequential public goods game, where agents lack knowledge of their position in the sequence but can observe some predecessors’ actions, full contribution emerges in equilibrium due to agents’ incentive to induce potential successors to follow suit. In this study, we aim to test the theoretical predictions of this model through an economic experiment. We conducted three treatments, varying the amount of information about past actions that a subject can observe, as well as their positional awareness. Through rigorous structural econometric analysis, we found that approximately 25% of the subjects behaved in line with the theoretical predictions. However, we also observed the presence of alternative behavioural types among the remaining subjects. The majority were classified as conditional co-operators, showing a willingness to cooperate based on others’ actions. Some subjects exhibited altruistic tendencies, while only a small minority engaged in free-riding behaviour.

Keywords

Position uncertaintyConditional co-operationSocial dilemmaExperimentFinite mixture models

JEL classification

D64: Altruism • Philanthropy • Intergenerational Transfers H41: Public Goods C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 27 , Issue 4: Special Issue in Honor of Amnon Rapoport, Part 1 , September 2024 , pp. 820 - 853
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Economic Science Association 2024

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