An experimental investigation of the responsible usage of power

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Powerful positions (in democracies) result mainly from elections or from appointments in hierarchies or from random distributions of resources. The research project investigates how people cope with responsibility if responsibility rests on the apointment of power and is supported by the democratic institutions (des)election and oath of office or hierarchie with nomination/ degradation. Our method is the analysis of experiments on the supply of public goods (team production). Voluntary contributions to public goods are compared with situation in which one member of the group (the allocator) is provided with power over the resources of all group members. This transfer of power is usually connected with the (usually tacit) transfer of responsibility of the welfare of the group. Treatments: e.g. (i) different transfer of responsibility with different sanctioning mechanisms. (ii) Equal and different efficiencies of the group members in their role as allocator.