Choosing between a socially efficient and free-riding equilibrium: Nurses versus economics and business students

Abstract

Six groups of economics and business students and six groups of nurses each participated in a laboratory threshold public goods game. This game is consistent both with equilibria involving cooperative and an equilibrium involving non-cooperative behavior. This contrasts with other games in which economics and business students proved less cooperative than others in contexts consistent only with equilibria involving non-cooperative behavior. Nevertheless, in the threshold game, the students moved inexorably toward the strong free-riding equilibrium, cooperating far less than the nurses, who cycled around an efficient threshold equilibrium. Subject pool selection clearly affects equilibrium selection in the threshold framework.