Threshold Effectiveness in Contributing to the Public Goods: Experiments Involving Czech Students

Abstract

Voluntary contribution mechanism to public goods is one of the traditional types of economic experiments. The article summarizes the results of series of experiments that have been conducted with several groups of Czech university students. Using the threshold mechanism the impact of several factors (experience, communication and the form of experiment) on voluntary contribution to public goods is tested. The results confi rm, to a great extent, fi ndings published by foreign studies. The results show that Czech students also do not behave consistently with the traditional economic public goods model, i.e. they cooperate voluntarily in situations that favour free riding. Threshold is a traditional part of (mostly American) charitable collections and can be regarded as one of the most successful modifi cations of the voluntary contribution mechanism to public good. Experiments involving Czech students indicate that such technique can be successful even in Czech non-profi t sector.