Abstract
Two important aspects of global environmental problems are that (1) the actions of past generations affect the opportunities of the present, and (2) both in the past and the present generations, collaboration across different countries is needed to provide global public goods. In this paper, we study how these two aspects influence public good provisions by running simultaneous intercountry laboratory experiments using a modified public goods game in Denmark, Spain and Ghana. While the theoretical predictions of the modified public goods game do not differ from that of the standard public goods game, our experimental results show otherwise. Pooling across results from our Danish, Spanish and Ghanaian participants, we find that present-generation individuals contribute a higher percentage of their endowments when they have better institutions and a lower percentage of their endowments when they have higher endowments. We also find that present-generation individuals contribute less to transnational public goods only when their initial conditions have not been affected by past-generation contributions.
Highlights
The 21 km2 island of Nauru in the Central Pacific once boasted of having the highest per-capita income enjoyed by any sovereign state in the world [1]
We find that present-generation individuals contribute less to transnational public goods only when their initial conditions have not been affected by past-generation contributions
Pooling our Danish, Spanish and Ghanaian participants, we find that past generations contribute more, when they know they affect the options of future generations
Summary
The 21 km island of Nauru in the Central Pacific once boasted of having the highest per-capita income enjoyed by any sovereign state in the world [1] Their income came solely from strip mining the island of its phosphate deposits. Knowing that their major source of income was unsustainable, the 12,000 residents of the island invested the mining revenues in a trust fund to protect their future generations, ensuring them a source of income. We are currently running similar experiments in Spain and Denmark This means that participants in these two countries are being read the same instructions as you. The dots on the map indicate the places where the exact same experiment is taking place
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