Imitation and the incentive to contribute early in a sequential public good game

Cartwright, Edward and Patel, Amrish ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2374-6409 (2010) Imitation and the incentive to contribute early in a sequential public good game. Journal of Public Economic Theory, 12 (4). pp. 691-708. ISSN 1097-3923

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Abstract

Whether motivated by reciprocity or conformity, imitation is common in public good contexts. We consider the incentive for an agent to contribute to a public good if he expects imitation from others. Using a sequential public good game with exogenous ordering, we show that agents early enough in the sequence who believe imitation to be sufficiently likely would want to contribute. By contributing, they expect total contributions to increase significantly. We also show that preferences determine how early an agent need be, that the observed share of imitators in experiments is sufficiently high to warrant contribution and that an increase in group size reduces the incentive to contribute.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Economic Theory Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2016 00:13
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2024 12:07
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59919
DOI:	10.1111/j.1467-9779.2010.01470.x

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