Toward a modelling of public goods provision : theory and experiment

建立公共物品供给模型：理论与实验

• 批准号: 08453001
• 负责人: SAIJO Tatsuyoshi
• 金额: $ 2.69万
• 依托单位: Osaka University
• 依托单位国家: 日本
• 项目类别: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 日本
• 起止时间: 1996 至 1998
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-08453001/
• 关键词: the Provision of Public Goods; Voluntary Participation; the Free-Rider Problem; Spiteful Behavior; Voluntary Contribution Mechanism; Kyoto Protocol; Emissions Trading; International Public Goods; 参加の自発性; ダブル・オークション; 相対取引; 公共財; 地球温暖化; 経済実験; メ

It is not easy to attain a Pareto efficient allocation in an economy with public goods, because the provision of public goods has an incentive problem called the free-rider problem. However, Groves and Ledyard proposed a mechanism that achieves a Pareto efficient allocation under the Nash equilibrium concept in 1977. Subsequently, numerous mechanisms have been proposed that satisfy additional desirable properties.In the previous mechanism design on public goods, it was implicitly assumed that no agents have a choice not to participate in the mechanism and that all agents are required to participate. In many practical circumstances such as international treaties, however, parties may have a choice not to participate in the mechanism proposed and hence some of them can free-ride on the benefit from a non-excludable public good provided by others.We explicitly incorporate non-excludability and examine a model with voluntary participation such that each agent can decide whether she participates in the mechanism or not. Unfortunately, we prove an impossibility theorem that it is impossible to design a mechanism in which each agent has an incentive to participate. We conducted various experiments in both Japan and the United State to verify this theorem. In Japanese experiments, subjects who decided to participate took actions so as to punish subjects who did not participate, although the payoffs of participating subjects decreased. Non-participating subjects thus learned that non-participation was not beneficial to them and hence they began regularly participating. That is, it seemed that the source of cooperation was not altruism or kindness but was a payoff- maximizing response to the spiteful behavior of other subjects. On the other hand, American subjects behaved as the theory predicted, i.e., the American data support the evolutionarily stable equilibrium predictions. An open question is to analyze these significantly different behaviors across countries.

在一个有公共物品的经济体中，要实现帕累托有效配置并不容易，因为公共物品的提供存在一个激励问题，称为搭便车问题。然而，格罗夫斯和Ledyard在1977年提出了一种机制，实现了纳什均衡概念下的帕累托有效分配。在以往的公共产品机制设计中，隐含着这样的假设：没有代理人可以选择不参与机制，所有代理人都必须参与。然而，在许多实际情况下，如国际条约，当事人可以选择不参加拟议的机制，因此，他们中的一些人可以搭便车的好处，从一个非排他性的公共产品提供的其他人。我们明确纳入非排他性和研究一个模型与自愿参与，这样每个代理人可以决定她是否参加该机制或不。不幸的是，我们证明了一个不可能性定理，这是不可能设计的机制，每个代理人都有参与的动机。我们在日本和美国进行了各种实验来验证这个定理。在日本的实验中，决定参与的受试者采取行动惩罚不参与的受试者，尽管参与受试者的收益减少了。因此，未参与的受试者了解到不参与对他们没有好处，因此他们开始定期参与。也就是说，合作的来源似乎不是利他主义或善良，而是对其他受试者恶意行为的回报最大化反应。另一方面，美国受试者的行为与理论预测的一样，即，美国的数据支持进化稳定均衡的预测。一个悬而未决的问题是如何分析不同国家的这些显著不同的行为。

项目成果

Yamato: "Nash Implementation and Double Implementation : Equivalence Theorems" Journal of Mathematical Economics. (forthcoming).

Yamato：“纳什实现和双重实现：等价定理”数学经济学杂志。

Saijo, Tatamitani, and Yamato: "Characterizing Natural Implementability : the Fair and Walrasian Correspondences" Games and Economic Behavior. (forthcoming).

Saijo、Tatamitani 和 Yamato：“表征自然可实施性：公平和瓦尔拉斯对应”游戏和经济行为。

Hizen and Saijo: "Designing GHG Emissions Trading Institutions in the Kyoto Protocol" Environmental Modelling and Software. (forthcoming).

Hizen 和 Saijo：“设计《京都议定书》中的温室气体排放交易机构”环境建模和软件。

Funaki and Yamato: "The core of an Economy with a Common Pool Resource" International Journal of Game Theory. (forthcoming).

Funaki 和 Yamato：“具有公共池资源的经济的核心”国际博弈论杂志。

Saijo and Yamato: "A Voluntary Participation Game with a Non-Excludable Public Good" Journal of Economic Theory. (forthcoming).

西条和大和：“具有非排他性公共物品的自愿参与博弈”经济理论杂志。