Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/156682 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 393
Publisher: 
European University Viadrina, Department of Business Administration and Economics, Frankfurt (Oder)
Abstract: 
In Binary Threshold Public Good (BTPG) games n players contribute or not to the production of a public good which is produced if and only if there are at least k contributors. The BTPG games with the highest (k=n) and the lowest (k=1) threshold are the Stag Hunt game and the Volunteer's Dilemma. There is a plethora of equilibria in BTPG games. We experimentally investigate 16 different symmetric and asymmetric BTPG games with n=4 and k=1,2,3,4 and test general theoretical attributes of equilibria and whether equilibrium play can apply at all. As theory predicts, neither magnitude effects nor a negative instead of a positive frame affect behavior which is contrary to the bulk of the experimental literature. In the Stag Hunt game, which is often used to discriminate between payoff dominance and risk dominance, risk dominance as a description of behavior is clearly rejected and payoff dominance is moderately supported. We show that no theory with homogeneous players can describe behavior.
Subjects: 
Binary Threshold Public Goods
framing
equilibrium selection
payoff dominance
risk dominance
efficiency
experiment
JEL: 
C72
D72
H41
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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