State or nature? Endogenous formal versus informal sanctions in the voluntary provision of public goods

Autor(en)
Kenju Kamei, Louis Putterman, Jean-Robert Tyran
Abstrakt

We investigate the endogenous formation of sanctioning institutions supposed to improve efficiency in the voluntary provision of public goods. Our paper parallels Markussen et al. (Rev Econ Stud 81:301–324, 2014) in that our experimental subjects vote over formal versus informal sanctions, but it goes beyond that paper by endogenizing the formal sanction scheme. We find that self-determined formal sanctions schemes are popular and efficient when they carry no up-front cost, but as in Markussen et al. informal sanctions are more popular and efficient than formal sanctions when adopting the latter entails such a cost. Practice improves the performance of sanction schemes: they become more targeted and deterrent with learning. Voters’ characteristics, including their tendency to engage in perverse informal sanctioning, help to predict individual voting.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Wiener Zentrum für Experimentelle Wirtschaftsforschung
Externe Organisation(en)
Durham University, Brown University
Journal
Experimental Economics
Band
18
Seiten
38 - 65
Anzahl der Seiten
28
ISSN
1386-4157
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-014-9405-0
Publikationsdatum
03-2015
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
502045 Verhaltensökonomie, 502021 Mikroökonomie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous)
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/state-or-nature-endogenous-formal-versus-informal-sanctions-in-the-voluntary-provision-of-public-goods(8644ed53-a1d6-4b65-a6bd-575c6e3ed86b).html