Privately Provided Public Goods: Theoretical, Econometric and Experimental Studies of Cooperation

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project examines altruistic, charitable and cooperative behavior using theoretical, experimental and standard econometric analyses. The project has three parts. Part I studies the nature of altruism. The objective of this component is to further our basic thinking about how economists should approach issues of altruism and cooperative behavior. This part contains both theoretical and experimental research. The theory incorporates the notion of an `empathic altruist` - someone who judges the generosity of another based on what he himself would have done. The experiments are variations on simple bargaining games designed to sharpen our understanding of why subjects engage in apparently altruistic behavior. Part II focuses on a particular aspect of this issue: charitable giving. The unifying theme of this part is the design of institutions to provide public goods. The part starts with a theoretical investigation of the endogenous formation of charitable organizations and the role of fundraising. This is followed with several experimental studies that should `reveal a preference` for the particular institutional forms of charities. Part III of the project is a standard public finance study of the determinants of volunteerism. A significant fraction of households volunteer, and the average volunteer gives hundreds of hours per year, yet we know very little about voluntary labor supply. This component includes two empirical projects designed to investigate the determinants of voluntary labor supply in the household using data from the Current Population Survey.