Can short-term incentives induce long-lasting cooperation? Results from a public-goods experiment
- This paper investigates whether providing strong cooperation incentives only at the outset of a group interaction spills over to later periods to ensure cooperation in the long run. We study a repeated linear public-good game with punishment opportunities and a parameter change after the first ten (of twenty) rounds. Our data shows that cooperation among subjects who had experienced a higher marginal return on public-good contributions or low punishment costs in rounds 1-10 rapidly deteriorated in rounds 11-20 once these incentives were removed, eventually trending below the level of cooperation in the control group. This suggests the possibility of temporary incentives backfiring in the long run. This paper ties in with the literature highlighting the potentially adverse effects of the use of incentives. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
| Author details: | Lisa Verena BruttelORCiDGND, Tim Friehe |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2014.09.001 |
| ISSN: | 2214-8043 |
| ISSN: | 2214-8051 |
| Title of parent work (English): | Journal of behavioral and experimental economics |
| Publisher: | Elsevier |
| Place of publishing: | New York |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Year of first publication: | 2014 |
| Publication year: | 2014 |
| Release date: | 2017/03/27 |
| Tag: | Experiment; Incentives; Public good game; Punishment; Team |
| Volume: | 53 |
| Number of pages: | 11 |
| First page: | 120 |
| Last Page: | 130 |
| Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
| Institution name at the time of the publication: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Erd- und Umweltwissenschaften |
