 |
This paper focuses on multiple collective goods provision. We analyze voluntary contributions through a comparison between a situation where players face two identical public goods and a situation where players face both a public good and a club good.
Individual contributions can be affected by the presence of more than one collective good. For instance, Cherry and Dickinson (2008) and Bernasconi et al. (2009) found an increase of total contributions when individuals face several identical public goods, compared to a single public good situation.
Multiple collective goods designs can also be useful for analyzing the preferences between two different collective goods. Blackwell and McKee (2003) and Fellner and Lünser (2014) found individual preferences for a local rather than a global public good when the average per capital return (A.P.C.R.) of the two goods is the same.
The mean contribution can be modified by the variation of the number of public goods. But according to the characteristics of the goods, individuals will either be indifferent to them, or will have preferences for one over the other. We study the distribution of contributions and the individual preferences between a standard public good and an exclusive collective good. However, we do not analyze the exogenous exclusion , such as between local and global, or in terms of discriminations as the experience of Fonseca and Chakravarty (2013); but rather by analyzing the endogenous exclusion, by testing a voluntary adhesion in good club.
The literature on club goods remains scarce and few papers have tried to make such a comparison. By definition, a public good is non-rival and non-exclusive while a club good is non-rival but exclusive. Swope (2002) compares a standard public good game with a club good game. In his experiment, exclusion is read into a voluntary adhesion where "subjects who contribute less than a minimal amount in a given period do not get any return from the public good in that period". His results show that exclusion increases contributions in most cases, compared to a standard and single public good game.
In our experiment, exclusivity is treated alike to Swope (2002). We suppose that the club good will be preferred compared to the public good. And we suppose a significant increase of the total collective contribution between the baseline and the treatment.
To our knowledge, we are the first who experimentally test endogenous exclusion through a multiple collective good design. However, this analysis can be useful to describe several real-life situations.
We witness a proliferation of club organizations, which groups benefit together from a common benefit (business consortium, community supported agriculture, grouping consumers, ...). These clubs may have different objectives and rules to join the club.
The common rule is the voluntary adhesion that ranges from a simple free registration, to the payment of a fee that may be stronger or weaker depending on the nature of the club.
Reference:
Bernasconi M., Corazzini L., Kube S. and Maréchal M.A., 2009. "Two are better than one! Individuals' contributions to “unpacked” public goods", Economics Letters, vol.104 (1), pp.31-33. DOI:10.1016/j.econlet.2009.03.015
Blackwell C. and McKee M., 2003. "Only for my own neighborhood? Preferences and voluntary provision of local and global public goods", Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, vol.52, pp.115–131.
Chakravarty S. and Fonseca M.A., 2013. " Discrimination via Exclusion: An Experiment on Group Identity and Club Goods", Economics Department Discussion Papers Series ISSN 1473 – 330.
Cherry T.L., Dickinson D.L., 2008. "Voluntary contributions with multiple public goods", In: Cherry T.L., Kroll S., Shogren J.F. (Eds.), Environmental Economics, Experimental Methods. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, UK and New York, US, pp.184-193.
Fellner G., Lünser G., 2014, "Cooperation in local and global groups", Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2014.02.007
Swope K. 2002. "An Experimental Investigation of Excludable Public Goods", Experimental Economics, vol.5, pp.209-222.
