Abstract
In many important public good situations the decision-making power and authority is delegated to representatives who make binding decisions on behalf of a larger group. The purpose of this study is to compare contribution decisions made by individuals with contribution decisions made by group representatives. We present the results from a laboratory experiment that compares decisions made by individuals in inter-individual public good games with decisions made by representatives on behalf of their group in inter-group public good games. Our main finding is that contribution behavior differs between individuals and group representatives, but only for women. While men’s choices are equally self-interested as individuals and group representatives, women make less self-interested choices as group representatives.
Highlights
In many important decisions, the decision-making power and authority is delegated to representatives who make binding decisions on behalf of a larger group
If decisions made as group representatives differ systematically from decisions made as individuals, this calls into question the external validity of research based on individual decisions to contexts where people act as group representatives
We find that men behave as individuals in the inter-individual public good game and as representatives in the inter-group public good game, while we find a quite substantial and robust difference in such decisions made by women
Summary
The decision-making power and authority is delegated to representatives who make binding decisions on behalf of a larger group. For instance, representatives for the different parties meet and negotiate on behalf of their respective groups. Contracts are negotiated by representatives of each of the contract partners, international agreements on climate change or other issues are negotiated by representatives of each of the participating nations, and within firms, departments might send representatives to decide on the future strategy. While both theoretical and empirical work within economics have focused mainly on individual decision makers and decisions made as individuals, insight from economics is commonly applied to contexts where decisions are made by individuals representing groups. See for instance Cooper and Kagel [1]
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