Multilevel Public Goods Research Articles

Real-effort in the Multilevel Public Goods Game

Abstract We investigate the extent to which a real-effort effect and an inequality effect impact individuals’ prosocial behavior in the multilevel public goods game. We explore two symmetrical treatments: one where everyone participates in a preliminary task to obtain their initial endowment, and another where no one does, to assess the real-effort effect. Additionally, we examine two asymmetrical treatments where only individuals from one local group engage in the preliminary task to study the inequality effect. We find evidence that the contribution to the local public good is stable across all treatments, while the contribution to the global public good is significantly lower when both groups perform the preliminary task.

Cooperation, punishment, and group change in multilevel public goods experiments

Peer punishment is regarded as an important element in sustaining human cooperation for public good provision. Many behavioral experiments have shown that public good provision is higher if cooperation norms can be enforced by peer punishment. These experiments predominantly focus on single-group public goods, in which people have to choose between their private interests and the interests of their group. However, many societal problems comprise multilevel public goods problems, where multiple local groups are nested within a larger global group. We study experimentally how punishment affects cooperation and norms in multilevel public goods games. In our lab experiment, two local groups are nested within a larger global group. Participants have to choose between not contributing, contributing locally, and contributing globally. Local contributions would lead to a fragmented outcome where two separate local public goods are provided, whereas global contributions would lead to a unified global good that benefits all. Moreover, we study whether cooperation and punishment patterns depend on the type of public good participants are initially exposed to: single-group or multilevel. Participants either begin in a single-group public goods game and then shift to a multilevel public goods game or vice versa. We find that punishment is less effective in multilevel public goods games than in single-group public goods games. Punishment only promotes cooperation in multilevel public goods games if people have prior experience with solving single-group public goods games. Our results refine the boundary conditions for the effectiveness of punishment and suggest that ‘starting small’ by first solving single-group public goods problems is helpful for successful multilevel public good provision.

Behavioral evidence for global consciousness transcending national parochialism

While national parochialism is commonplace, individual differences explain more variance in it than cross-national differences. Global consciousness (GC), a multi-dimensional concept that includes identification with all humanity, cosmopolitan orientation, and global orientation, transcends national parochialism. Across six societies (N = 11,163), most notably the USA and China, individuals high in GC were more generous allocating funds to the other in a dictator game, cooperated more in a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma, and differentiated less between the ingroup and outgroup on these actions. They gave more to the world and kept less for the self in a multi-level public goods dilemma. GC profiles showed 80% test–retest stability over 8 months. Implications of GC for cultural evolution in the face of trans-border problems are discussed.

Multilevel public goods game: Levelling up, substitution and crowding-in effects

Multilevel public goods game: Levelling up, substitution and crowding-in effects

Leveling up? An inter-neighborhood experiment on parochialism and the efficiency of multi-level public goods provision

Many public goods can be provided at different spatial levels. Evidence from social identity theory and in-group favoritism raises the possibility that when higher-level provision is more efficient, subjects’ narrow concern for local outcomes could undermine efficiency. Building on the experimental paradigm of multi-level public good games and the concept of “neighborhood attachment,” we conduct an artefactual field experiment with over 600 participants in a setting conducive to routine parochial behavior. In an inter-neighborhood intra-region design, subjects allocate an endowment between a personal, a local, and a regional public good account. The between-subjects design crosses two treatment dimensions: One informs subjects that the smaller local group consists of members from their own neighborhood, while the other varies the relative productivity at the two public goods provision levels. We find evidence for parochialism, but contrary to our hypothesis, parochialism does not interfere with efficiency: The average subject responds to a change in relative productivities at the local and regional levels in the same way, whether they are aware of their neighbors’ presence in the small group or not. The results even hold for subjects with above-median neighborhood attachment and subjects primed on neighborhood attachment.

Leveling Up? An Inter-Neighborhood Experiment on Parochialism and the Efficiency of Multi-Level Public Goods Provision

Many public goods can be provided at different spatial levels. Evidence from social identity theory and in-group favoritism raises the possibility that where higher-level provision is more efficient, subjects’ narrow concern for local outcomes (parochialism) could harm efficiency. Building on the experimental paradigm of multi-level public good games and the ‘neighborhood attachment’ concept, we conduct an artefactual field experiment with 600 participants in a setting conducive to parochial behavior. In an inter-neighborhood intraregion design, subjects allocate an endowment between a personal account, a local, and a regional public good account. The between-subjects design varies across two dimensions: One informs subjects that the smaller local group consists of members from their own neighborhood (‘neighbors’). The other varies the relative productivity at the two public goods provision levels. We find evidence for parochialism, but contrary to our hypothesis, parochialism does not interfere with efficiency: The average subject responds to a change in relative productivities at the local and regional level in the same way, whether aware of their neighbors’ presence in the small group or not. The results even hold for subjects with above-median neighborhood attachment and subjects primed on neighborhood attachment.

Provision of Multilevel Public Goods by Positive Externalities: Experimental Evidence

Abstract The provision of public goods regularly embodies interrelated spheres of influence on multiple scales. This article examines the nature of human behavior in a multilevel social dilemma game with positive provision externalities to local and global scales. We report experimental results showing that behavior in multilevel games is strongly driven by asymmetric conditional cooperation prioritizing local level externalities. Our findings demonstrate how individuals over time adjust their behavior to local conditions. We do not find significant adjustment to global group average, suggesting that the local group creates a salient reference group for social comparisons in multilevel public goods provision. Our results emphasize the importance of strong local level commitment when designing institutions to promote sustainable provision of globally important public goods like the global climate.

Evolution of global cooperation driven by risks

Globalization facilitates our communication with each other, while it magnifies problems such as overharvesting of natural resources and human-induced climate change. Thus people all over the world are involved in a global social dilemma which calls for worldwide cooperation to reduce the risks of these extreme events and disasters. A collective target (threshold) is required to prevent such events. Everyone may lose their wealth once their total individual contributions fail to reach the threshold. To this end, we establish a model of threshold public goods games in a group-structured population and investigate its evolutionary process. We study multilevel public goods games with defectors, local cooperators, and global cooperators and are primarily concerned with how the global cooperative behavior evolves. We find that, compared with the standard public goods games, the strategy of global cooperation accounts for a bigger proportion in the stationary distribution of threshold public goods games. On the other hand, the fixation time of the global cooperation strategy is greatly shortened with increase of the probability of disaster striking. Therefore, global risks induced by the threshold can effectively promote global cooperation in environmental investment and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.