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In traditional public good experiments participants receive an endowment from the experimenter that can be invested in a public good or kept in a private account. In this paper we present an experimental environment where participants can invest time during

In traditional public good experiments participants receive an endowment from the experimenter that can be invested in a public good or kept in a private account. In this paper we present an experimental environment where participants can invest time during five days to contribute to a public good. Participants can make contributions to a linear public good by logging into a web application and performing virtual actions. We compared four treatments, with different group sizes and information of (relative) performance of other groups. We find that information feedback about performance of other groups has a small positive effect if we control for various attributes of the groups. Moreover, we find a significant effect of the contributions of others in the group in the previous day on the number of points earned in the current day. Our results confirm that people participate more when participants in their group participate more, and are influenced by information about the relative performance of other groups.

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    Title
    • Stimulating Contributions to Public Goods Through Information Feedback: Some Experimental Results
    Date Created
    2016-07-26
    Resource Type
  • Text
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    Identifier
    • Digital object identifier: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159537
    • Identifier Type
      International standard serial number
      Identifier Value
      1045-3830
    • Identifier Type
      International standard serial number
      Identifier Value
      1939-1560
    Note
    • The article is published at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0159537

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    This is a suggested citation. Consult the appropriate style guide for specific citation guidelines.

    Janssen, M. A., Lee, A., & Sundaram, H. (2016). Stimulating Contributions to Public Goods through Information Feedback: Some Experimental Results. Plos One, 11(7). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0159537

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