Abstract
We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how, after a history of decay, cooperation in a repeated voluntary contribution game can be revived in an enduring way. Simply starting the repeated game over—a simple fresh start—leads to an initial increase of cooperation, but to a subsequent new decay. Motivated by cooperation decay in organizations we study the potential of three interventions of triggering higher and sustained cooperation, which take place at the same time as a restart. Surprisingly, we find that the detailed explanation of the causes of the decay in cooperation of Fischbacher and Gächter (Am Econ Rev 100:541–556, 2010) combined with an advice on how to prevent decay do not have an effect beyond that of just starting over. In contrast, a one-way free form communication message sent by the leader to the followers strongly revives cooperation. We find evidence that repeated free form communication by the leader further strengthens the reviving effect on cooperation. Combining the two previous interventions does not outperform the pure effect of communication. Our content analysis reveals that leader communication is more people oriented than the expert advice.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10683-015-9468-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
A common observation in experimental studies of public goods games is that, in environments with a finite horizon, cooperation levels are initially rather high but decrease steadily over time.1 The question we study in this paper is which instruments can be used to revive cooperation effectively after such a history of decay
We find that the effect of communication from the leader to the followers revives cooperation significantly more than the pure restart and the comprehension/advice treatments
Compared to Brosig et al (2003) who focus on the game theoretic prediction and the effect of communication in their ‘‘lecture’’ treatment, our comprehension/advice text focuses on the decline of cooperation over time and the sequential game form involving leaders and followers
Summary
A common observation in experimental studies of public goods games is that, in environments with a finite horizon, cooperation levels are initially rather high but decrease steadily over time. The question we study in this paper is which instruments can be used to revive cooperation effectively after such a history of decay. The second regularity we build on is reported in Croson (1996) who follows up on Andreoni (1988) In her public goods experiment, ten additional rounds are announced after the initial ten rounds are over. Our focus is on studying whether humans’ spontaneous tendency to react to a fresh start can be reinforced by some additional intervention We study this issue in the context of a public goods game involving a leader. The repeated restart allows us to study whether, if the first effect is positive, repeated interventions can further strengthen the initial reaction and lead to sustained cooperation levels. We find that the effect of communication from the leader to the followers revives cooperation significantly more than the pure restart and the comprehension/advice treatments. The effect of comprehension and advice is not beyond that of just starting over
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