scholarly journals To free ride or not to free ride? Role of patterning and feedback in the public goods game

2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 84-106
Author(s):  
Ananish Chaudhuri ◽  
DeeDee Chen ◽  
Sara Graziano ◽  
Frances McIntire ◽  
Dawn Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
The Public ◽  
Free Ride

scholarly journals Heterogeneous groups cooperate in public good problems despite normative disagreements about individual contribution levels

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper Otten ◽  
Vincent Buskens ◽  
Wojtek Przepiorka ◽  
Naomi Ellemers
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Individual Contribution ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Homogeneous Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
Heterogeneous Groups ◽  
Good Provision ◽  
Good Individual

Abstract Norms can promote human cooperation to provide public goods. Yet, the potential of norms to promote cooperation may be limited to homogeneous groups in which all members benefit equally from the public good. Individual heterogeneity in the benefits of public good provision is commonly conjectured to bring about normative disagreements that harm cooperation. However, the role of these normative disagreements remains unclear because they are rarely directly measured or manipulated. In a laboratory experiment, we first measure participants’ views on the appropriate way to contribute to a public good with heterogeneous returns. We then use this information to sort people into groups that either agree or disagree on these views, thereby manipulating group-level disagreement on normative views. Participants subsequently make several incentivized contribution decisions in a public goods game with peer punishment. We find that although there are considerable disagreements about individual contribution levels in heterogeneous groups, these disagreements do not impede cooperation. While cooperation is maintained because low contributors are punished, participants do not use punishment to impose their normative views on others. The contribution levels at which groups cooperate strongly relate to the average normative views of these groups.

scholarly journals Classroom Games: Voluntary Provision of a Public Good

1997 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 209-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles A Holt ◽  
Susan K Laury
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Fund Raising ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
Voluntary Provision ◽  
Good Problem

This paper describes a simple public goods game, implemented with playing cards in a classroom setup. Students choose whether to contribute to the provision of a public good in a situation where it is privately optimal not to contribute, but socially optimal to contribute fully. This exercise motivates discussion of altruism, strategies for private fund-raising, and the role of government in resolving the public good problem.

scholarly journals Punishment Strategies across Societies: Conventional Wisdoms Reconsidered

Games ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Ramzi Suleiman ◽  
Yuval Samid
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
The Public ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
The World ◽  
Emergence Of Cooperation ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Cost

Experiments using the public goods game have repeatedly shown that in cooperative social environments, punishment makes cooperation flourish, and withholding punishment makes cooperation collapse. In less cooperative social environments, where antisocial punishment has been detected, punishment was detrimental to cooperation. The success of punishment in enhancing cooperation was explained as deterrence of free riders by cooperative strong reciprocators, who were willing to pay the cost of punishing them, whereas in environments in which punishment diminished cooperation, antisocial punishment was explained as revenge by low cooperators against high cooperators suspected of punishing them in previous rounds. The present paper reconsiders the generality of both explanations. Using data from a public goods experiment with punishment, conducted by the authors on Israeli subjects (Study 1), and from a study published in Science using sixteen participant pools from cities around the world (Study 2), we found that: 1. The effect of punishment on the emergence of cooperation was mainly due to contributors increasing their cooperation, rather than from free riders being deterred. 2. Participants adhered to different contribution and punishment strategies. Some cooperated and did not punish (‘cooperators’); others cooperated and punished free riders (‘strong reciprocators’); a third subgroup punished upward and downward relative to their own contribution (‘norm-keepers’); and a small sub-group punished only cooperators (‘antisocial punishers’). 3. Clear societal differences emerged in the mix of the four participant types, with high-contributing pools characterized by higher ratios of ‘strong reciprocators’, and ‘cooperators’, and low-contributing pools characterized by a higher ratio of ‘norm keepers’. 4. The fraction of ‘strong reciprocators’ out of the total punishers emerged as a strong predictor of the groups’ level of cooperation and success in providing the public goods.

scholarly journals Cooperation and competition between pair and multi-player social games in spatial populations

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Szolnoki ◽  
Xiaojie Chen
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Evolutionary Game Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Game ◽  
Pair Interaction ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Point Interactions ◽  
Social Games ◽  
The Public ◽  
Specific Parameter ◽  
Group Members

AbstractThe conflict between individual and collective interests is in the heart of every social dilemmas established by evolutionary game theory. We cannot avoid these conflicts but sometimes we may choose which interaction framework to use as a battlefield. For instance some people like to be part of a larger group while other persons prefer to interact in a more personalized, individual way. Both attitudes can be formulated via appropriately chosen traditional games. In particular, the prisoner’s dilemma game is based on pair interaction while the public goods game represents multi-point interactions of group members. To reveal the possible advantage of a certain attitude we extend these models by allowing players not simply to change their strategies but also let them to vary their attitudes for a higher individual income. We show that both attitudes could be the winner at a specific parameter value. Interestingly, however, the subtle interplay between different states may result in a counterintuitive evolutionary outcome where the increase of the multiplication factor of public goods game drives the population to a fully defector state. We point out that the accompanying pattern formation can only be understood via the multipoint or multi-player interactions of different microscopic states where the vicinity of a particular state may influence the relation of two other competitors.

A Case for Private Provision but Collective Ownership of Public Goods

1998 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Gerdes
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Private Provision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Collective Ownership ◽  
Free Ride ◽  
Voluntary Exchange

One strategy for generating Pareto results in a public good model is to create an environment where traders internalize the public good externality. The model presented here accomplishes this by separating the provision and ownership of public goods. Such goods are privately provided but collectively owned. Under this arrangement, Lindahl prices are generated through the voluntary exchange activities of consumers. Persistent attempts to free ride are not consistent with maximizing behavior which leads to internalization.

scholarly journals Staphylococcus aureuscoagulases are exploitable yet stable public goods in clinically relevant conditions

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (50) ◽  
pp. E11771-E11779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urvish Trivedi ◽  
Jonas S. Madsen ◽  
Jake Everett ◽  
Cody Fell ◽  
Jakob Russel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Defense Mechanism ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Coagulation Cascade ◽  
The Public ◽  
Innate Defense ◽  
The Commons

Coagulation is an innate defense mechanism intended to limit blood loss and trap invading pathogens during infection. However,Staphylococcus aureushas the ability to hijack the coagulation cascade and generate clots via secretion of coagulases. Although manyS. aureushave this characteristic, some do not. The population dynamics regarding this defining trait have yet to be explored. We report here that coagulases are public goods that confer protection against antimicrobials and immune factors within a local population or community, thus promoting growth and virulence. By utilizing variants of a methicillin-resistantS. aureuswe infer that the secretion of coagulases is a cooperative trait, which is subject to exploitation by invading mutants that do not produce the public goods themselves. However, overexploitation, “tragedy of the commons,” does not occur at clinically relevant conditions. Our micrographs indicate this is due to spatial segregation and population viscosity. These findings emphasize the critical role of coagulases in a social evolution context and provide a possible explanation as to why the secretion of these public goods is maintained in mixedS. aureuscommunities.

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