Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Public Good Provision with Inter-Group Competition: The Effect of Group Size Asymmetry and Communication

博士论文改进补助金：群体间竞争的公共物品供给：群体规模不对称和沟通的影响

• 批准号: 0721019
• 负责人: Timothy Cason
• 金额: $ 0.97万
• 依托单位: Purdue University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-01 至 2010-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0721019&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Public

Intellectual Merit. Public good provision with inter-group competition has important applications in political economics and organizational economics. Examples include election campaigns, rent-seeking contests and patent races. This project uses experimental methods to study competition between two unequal size groups for a monetary prize. The prize is shared by the members of the winning group, regardless of their individual contributions to the groups' success, so the prize constitutes a public good. The economic environment incorporates two levels of conflict: within-group, individuals have an incentive to free ride on other members' costly contributions; and between-group, groups have an incentive to compete for the prize. The research first studies a simple environment in which group members make a binary decision between contributing and not contributing. The project is later extended to a more general and realistic setting in which group members decide how much to contribute rather than simply whether or not to contribute. In both cases, the experimental design examines whether pre-play within-group communication helps to solve the within-group free riding problem. When within-group communication is not allowed, in a Nash equilibrium the small group has reasonable chances to win the prize in spite of its size disadvantage. Once group members can communicate, however, in equilibrium the small group rarely contributes and the large group is usually able to win. This is because groups can better coordinate when communication is allowed, and they are more likely to achieve the optimal collective outcome and avoid free-riding behavior. Content analysis is used to systematically quantify how communication affects the play of the game, which provides an important methodological contribution. Broader Impacts. The research has important implications for practical policy conclusions and prescriptions. For example, it can provide behavioral benchmarks for the potential costs of rent-seeking contests with asymmetric groups, which can provide guidance for election campaign reform. It will also indicate potential gains or costs to innovative activity from allowing research joint ventures. The study is also projected to have a broad impact for teaching, learning, and participation by underrepresented groups. The project will employ over 400 undergraduate student subjects drawn from a large and diversified student population at Purdue University and will provide these students with important exposure to modern research methods. Many of these subjects, drawn from economics and management classes, will be non-science majors.

智力优势。群体竞争下的公共物品供给在政治经济学和组织经济学中有重要的应用。这方面的例子包括竞选活动、寻租竞赛和专利竞赛。本项目采用实验的方法研究两个大小不等的群体之间的竞争，以获得奖金。该奖项由获奖团体的成员分享，而不管他们个人对团体成功的贡献如何，因此该奖项构成了公益。 经济环境包含两个层次的冲突：在群体内，个人有动机免费乘坐其他成员的昂贵贡献;群体间，群体有动机竞争奖品。该研究首先研究了一个简单的环境，在这个环境中，小组成员在贡献和不贡献之间做出二元决策。该项目后来扩展到更普遍和现实的环境，小组成员决定贡献多少，而不是简单地决定是否贡献。在这两种情况下，实验设计研究是否发挥组内沟通有助于解决组内搭便车的问题。当组内通信是不允许的，在纳什均衡的小群体有合理的机会赢得奖品，尽管其规模的劣势。然而，一旦群体成员能够沟通，在均衡中，小群体很少做出贡献，大群体通常能够获胜。这是因为当沟通被允许时，群体可以更好地协调，他们更有可能实现最佳的集体结果，避免搭便车行为。内容分析被用来系统地量化沟通如何影响游戏的发挥，这提供了一个重要的方法论贡献。更广泛的影响。该研究对实际的政策结论和处方具有重要意义。例如，它可以为与不对称群体的寻租竞赛的潜在成本提供行为基准，这可以为竞选改革提供指导。它还将表明允许联合研究企业对创新活动的潜在收益或成本。预计这项研究还将对教育、学习和代表性不足群体的参与产生广泛影响。该项目将雇用400多名来自普渡大学庞大而多样化的学生群体的本科生，并将为这些学生提供重要的现代研究方法。这些课程中有许多是从经济学和管理学课程中挑选出来的，将是非理科专业。