Community-driven reconstruction in Colombia: An experimental study of collective action beyond program beneficiaries

D'Exelle, Ben ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9332-5223, Coleman, Eric and Lopez, Maria Claudia (2018) Community-driven reconstruction in Colombia: An experimental study of collective action beyond program beneficiaries. World Development, 101. 188–201. ISSN 0305-750X

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Abstract

Increased community cooperation is an important objective of Community-Driven Reconstruction (CDR) programs in post-conflict settings. While these programs typically work with a limited group of beneficiaries, little is known about the potential community impact beyond these beneficiaries. To investigate this, we empirically analyze how cooperative behavior develops in a lab-in-the-field experiment with mixed groups of CDR program beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries, organized in 42 municipalities in Colombia with active CDR programs. In the experiment, we use two rounds of a binary public goods game with a communication stage between both rounds. The experimental data are complemented with information on pre-existing social proximity among the participants and whether they have participated in a CDR program. We find that cooperation increases after communication, and that it correlates positively with the proportion of cooperators before communication. This peer effect is mainly driven by the cooperative behavior of CDR program beneficiaries while the influence of non-beneficiaries is limited.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: collective action,community reconstruction,communication,experiments,south america,colombia
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of International Development
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Experimental Economics (former - to 2017)
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Impact Evaluation
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 15 Sep 2017 05:07
Last Modified: 14 Jun 2023 13:07
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/64882
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.09.003

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