POWRE: Individual Motives For Giving

该项目由一系列受控实验室实验组成，旨在检查个人对提供公共产品的贡献，如公园、游乐场、清洁空气或国防。经济学家观察到，平均而言，人们对这些公共产品的贡献超过了纯粹自私自利的个人的预期，他们将自己的单轮货币收益最大化。对这一现象的分析几乎完全集中在总体行为上，使用规模从4到100的群体的平均贡献作为其主要衡量标准。虽然这产生了对捐款行为的重要见解，但它忽略了这些群体中个人行为的丰富性和多样性。这个项目的目的是设计实验，使人们能够更好地分析这种个人贡献行为。最近的理论工作指出，当考虑到其他捐赠动机(例如利他主义、错误和信号)时，实验性处理(如公共利益的价值、贡献的成本、群体规模和个人资源禀赋)预计将对贡献产生影响。在这个项目中，研究人员将设计和运行实验，其中这些因素在一个单独的过程中对个人来说是不同的。然后研究了这些处理对个人捐款行为的影响，并与几种捐款行为模型的预测进行了比较。还将开发一个跨期信号传递行为模型：个人可能在当前回合中做出贡献，以便在未来几轮中发出合作意愿的信号。传统经济学理论认为，个人纯粹是自私自利和理性的：他们最大化自己的收入，忽视自己的决定对他人福利的影响。然而，公共产品为其他人提供了额外的好处。如果一个人忽视了这种额外的利益(正如传统理论预测的那样)，那么从社会的角度来看，提供的公共利益将太少。在最极端的情况下，根本不会提供公共产品，即使提供产品符合每个人的最佳利益。这是政府提供一些公共产品的理由之一：市场将无法提供(或将提供低效率的)公共产品，因此必须进行外部干预。以前的研究已经证明，这种完全的市场失灵不会发生：公共产品既是在自然发生的环境中提供的(例如，对慈善事业的捐赠被广泛观察到)，也是在受控的实验室实验中提供的。然而，提供的商品数量通常低于社会最优水平。这项研究对依赖私人捐款支持的机构和组织具有一定的借鉴意义。通过将重点放在促进或阻碍合作的因素上，并查明个人中普遍存在的各种捐款动机，这可能使非营利组织和其他组织能够更有针对性地开展筹资活动。此外，还可能评估政府直接提供某些公共产品的替代方案。这笔POWRE研究拨款将允许研究人员计划她的研究议程，进行试点实验，开发新的理论模型，并分析试点实验的结果。她目前在南卡罗来纳大学担任联合职位：一半时间在经济系担任终身教职，另一半时间在工商管理学院管理南卡罗来纳州的经济预测服务。她担任研究职位的职责剥夺了她对公共产品提供问题进行学术研究的时间和注意力。国家科学基金会的支持将有助于她专注于终身教职轨道的研究目标，从而推动她的学术生涯。

This project consists of a series of controlled laboratory experiments designed to examine individual contributions to the provision of public goods, such as parks, playgrounds, clean air, or national defense. Economists have observed that on average people contribute more to these public goods than predicted for purely self-interested individuals maximizing their own single-round monetary earnings. The analysis of this phenomenon has focused almost exclusively on aggregate behavior, using as its predominant measure the average contributions by groups ranging in size from four through 100. While this has yielded important insights into contribution behavior, it ignores the richness and diversity of the individual behavior within these groups. The purpose of this project is to design experiments that allow one to better analyze this individual contribution behavior. Recent theoretical work has pointed toward the effects that experimental treatments (such as the value of the public good, the cost of contributing, group size and individual resource endowment) are predicted to have on contributions when other motives for giving (altruism, errors, and signaling for example) are considered. In this project the investigator will design and run experiments in which these factors are varied for individuals during a single session. The effects of these treatments on individuals' contribution behavior are then studied, and compared with the predictions of several models of contribution behavior. A model of intertemporal signaling behavior will also be developed: an individual may contribute in the current round in order to signal a willingness to `cooperate` in future rounds. Traditional economic theory assumes that individuals are purely self-interested and rational: they maximize their own earnings and ignore the impact of their decisions on others' welfare. Public goods, however, provide an additional benefit to others. If an individual ignores this additional benefit (as traditional theory predicts) then too little of the public good will be provided from society's point of view. In the most extreme situation, the public good will not be provided at all, even when it is in everyone's best interest to provide the good. This is one justification for government provision of some public goods: the market will fail to provide (or will provide inefficiently low levels of) a public good and thus outside intervention is mandated. Previous research has demonstrated that such a complete market failure does not occur: public goods are provided both in naturally-occurring settings (contributions to charity are widely observed, for example) and in controlled laboratory experiments. However, the amount of the good provided is typically less than the social optimum. This research has implications for agencies and organizations that rely upon private donations for their support. By focusing on those factors that foster or inhibit cooperation, and identifying the prevalence of various motives for contributing among individuals, this may allow non-profits and other organizations to better target their fund-raising efforts. Alternatives to direct government provision of some public goods may also be assessed. This POWRE research grant will allow the investigator to plan her research agenda, conduct pilot experiments, develop a new theoretical model, and analyze the results of pilot experiments. She currently hold a joint position at the University of South Carolina: half-time with a tenure track position in the department of economics and a half-time research position managing the South Carolina economic forecasting service for the College of Business Administration. Her duties for the research position take away from the time and attention she can pay to her academic research on the public goods provision problem. The support of the National Science Foundation will be invaluable in helping her to focus on her tenure track research objectives and thus will advance her academic career.