Privately Provided Public Goods: Theoretical, Econometric and Experimental Studies of Cooperation

这个项目使用理论、实验和标准的计量经济学分析来考察利他主义、慈善和合作行为。该项目包括三个部分。第一部分研究了利他主义的本质。这一部分的目的是促进我们对经济学家应该如何处理利他主义和合作行为问题的基本思考。这一部分包括理论研究和实验研究。这一理论包含了“共情利他主义者”的概念，即根据他人的慷慨程度来判断对方的慷慨程度的人。这些实验是简单讨价还价游戏的变体，旨在加深我们对受试者为何会做出明显的利他行为的理解。第二部分侧重于这一问题的一个特定方面：慈善捐赠。这一部分的统一主题是提供公共产品的制度设计。该部分首先对慈善组织的内生形成和募捐作用进行了理论考察。紧随其后的是几项实验研究，这些研究应该“揭示出对特定机构形式的慈善机构的偏好”。该项目的第三部分是关于志愿服务决定因素的标准公共财政研究。很大一部分家庭是志愿者，志愿者平均每年贡献数百个小时，但我们对志愿劳动力供应知之甚少。这一构成部分包括两个经验性项目，旨在利用当前人口调查的数据调查家庭中自愿劳动力供应的决定因素。

This project examines altruistic, charitable and cooperative behavior using theoretical, experimental and standard econometric analyses. The project has three parts. Part I studies the nature of altruism. The objective of this component is to further our basic thinking about how economists should approach issues of altruism and cooperative behavior. This part contains both theoretical and experimental research. The theory incorporates the notion of an `empathic altruist` - someone who judges the generosity of another based on what he himself would have done. The experiments are variations on simple bargaining games designed to sharpen our understanding of why subjects engage in apparently altruistic behavior. Part II focuses on a particular aspect of this issue: charitable giving. The unifying theme of this part is the design of institutions to provide public goods. The part starts with a theoretical investigation of the endogenous formation of charitable organizations and the role of fundraising. This is followed with several experimental studies that should `reveal a preference` for the particular institutional forms of charities. Part III of the project is a standard public finance study of the determinants of volunteerism. A significant fraction of households volunteer, and the average volunteer gives hundreds of hours per year, yet we know very little about voluntary labor supply. This component includes two empirical projects designed to investigate the determinants of voluntary labor supply in the household using data from the Current Population Survey.