Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: To Join or Not to Join: Coalition Formation in a Public Goods Game

本研究将运用经济学理论和实验室实验来研究如何形成联盟以有效地提供公共产品。公共产品是可以被几个人同时消费的产品或服务，一旦提供，就没有机制阻止任何人消费。 由于这些特点，有强烈的动机“搭便车”-享受公共利益，而不支付它的规定。 这通常导致公共产品供应不足。 搭便车问题的一个可能解决方案是形成联盟，共同提供公共产品。 虽然联盟可以形成以生产公共产品，但经济学家不了解这些联盟可能形成的条件以及这些条件如何影响这些联盟提供公共产品的效率。本研究将结合行为经济学的联合收割机理论与实验室实验，研究公共产品供给的联合组织。 研究设计将允许研究人员调查几个方面的联盟形成的公共产品提供。 这项研究的结果可能对当今社会和企业面临的许多问题产生影响，例如可持续发展和提供公共服务，如医疗保健和公共基础设施。 这项研究的结果将导致改善公共产品的提供，如基础设施，从而增加经济增长，提高生活水平在美国。本研究采用理论和实验的方法来探讨行为经济学为基础的解释联盟的形成和他们在提供公共产品的作用。虽然现有的公共产品理论预测搭便车和低效率的结果，实验结果表明，合作存在的贡献率在40- 60%的有效水平，这表明理论方法错过了一些重要的东西。 这项研究采取了一种新的方法，公共产品的游戏，允许异质性的私人已知的社会成员之间的社会偏好，以及从公共产品的个人回报的变化。 两阶段机制允许个人在第一阶段选择是否加入联盟。一旦个人了解了联盟的规模，他们就会决定在第二阶段为公共产品的提供做出贡献的可取性。 因此，虽然个人的社会偏好是私人信息，但该机制增加了公共产品的规模，从而提高了结果效率。 该研究使用激励实验室实验来测试该模型的理论预测，这些实验将提供决策者在简单环境中是否可以实现预测结果的证据。 这项研究的结果将进一步促进更好地理解联盟在提供公共产品方面的重要性。 这项研究的结果将导致改善公共产品的提供，如基础设施，从而增加经济增长和提高美国的生活水平。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This research project will use economic theory and laboratory experiments to study how coalitions form to provide public goods efficiently. Public goods are goods or services that can be simultaneously consumed by several people and there is no mechanism to exclude anyone from consuming it once it is provided. Because of these characteristics, there is strong incentives to “free ride”---enjoy the public good without paying for it provision. This usually results in inadequate supply of the public good. A possible solution of the free rider problem is the formation of coalitions to collectively provide public goods. While coalitions may form to produce public goods, economists do not understand the conditions under which these coalitions are likely to form and how these conditions affect the efficiency with which such coalitions provide public goods. This project will combine insights from behavioral economics and laboratory experiments to study coalition formation for the provision of public goods. The research design will allow the researchers to investigate several aspects of coalition formation in public goods provision. The findings of this research could have implications for many problems that society and businesses face today such as sustainable development and provision of public services like health care and public infrastructure. The results of this research will lead to improved provision of public goods, such as infrastructure, hence increase economic growth and improve living standards in the US.This study uses theoretical and experimental methods to explore behavioral economics based explanations for the formation of coalitions and their role in the provision of public goods. While existing public goods theory predicts free riding and inefficient outcomes, experimental results suggest cooperation exists with contribution rates at 40-60 percent of the efficient level, suggesting that theoretical approaches miss something important. This research takes a novel approach to the public goods game, allowing for heterogeneity in privately known social preferences between members of society as well as variation in individual returns from the public good. A two stage mechanism allows individuals to choose whether or not to join the coalition in the first stage. Once individuals learn the size of the coalition, they then determine the desirability of contributing to the public good provision in the second stage. As a result, although individual social preferences are private information, the mechanism increases the size of the public good and thus outcome efficiency. The research tests the theoretical predictions of this model using incentivized laboratory experiments which will provide evidence on whether decision makers in a simple environment can achieve predicted outcomes. The results of this study will further facilitate a better understanding of the importance of coalitions in provisioning of public goods. The results of this research will lead to improve provision of public goods, such as infrastructure, hence increase economic growth and improved living standards in the US.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.