Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Experimental Investigation of the Public Goods Agency Problem

该奖项资助了一篇博士论文，该论文将研究当人们知道管理者将决定如何使用他们的贡献来造福他人时，他们如何为公共产品做出贡献。 行为经济学以前的研究使用实验室实验来确定哪些因素鼓励个人为提供公共产品的努力做出贡献。 在之前的研究中，实验设计意味着所有个人都确信他们的捐款将直接用于资助公共产品。 但是，在许多真实的世界情况下，慈善管理者必须就如何使用捐款做出决定。 在这种环境下，慈善捐助者可能会担心他们的捐款不会直接用于造福他人。 从经济学的角度来看，管理者是作为贡献者的代理人，这种代理关系可能会导致效率低下的结果。coPI将进行四组实验，旨在验证代理关系如何影响自愿捐款和公共产品提供的假设。 第一个研究探讨了在广泛使用的自愿捐款机制（VCM）中的代理效应。 第二个研究探讨信息披露规则与慈善机构之间的捐款竞争对代理的影响。 第三个研究探讨捐赠者是否有一个偏好的不合作行为水平，如果这个偏好水平是与不合作行为的性质。 最后，第四项研究采用了一个供应点机制（PPM），这允许在两个不同的贡献机制的影响，代理测试将雇用本科生，并将有实际意义的慈善机构和其他非营利企业的管理依赖于捐款。

This award funds a doctoral dissertation that will examine how people make contributions to public goods when they know that a manager will decide how their contributions are used to benefit others. Previous research in behavioral economics has used lab experiments to determine what factors encourage individuals to contribute to efforts that provide public goods. In this previous research, the experimental design meant that all individuals were certain that their contributions would go directly to funding public goods. However, in many real world situations, charity managers must make decisions about how to use contributions. In this environment, charitable contributors may be concerned that their donations will not be used to benefit others directly. In economic terms, the manager is acting as an agent for the contributors, and there is a chance that this agency relationship will result in inefficient outcomes.The coPI will conduct four sets of experiments designed to test hypotheses about how the agency relationship will affect voluntary contributions and public goods provision. The first study investigates the effects of agency in the widely-used voluntary contributions mechanism (VCM). The second study considers the rule of information disclosure and competition between charities for contributions on the effects of agency. The third study investigates whether donors have a preferred level of uncooperative behavior and if this preferred level is related to the nature of the uncooperative action. Finally, the fourth study employs a provision point mechanism (PPM); this allows for a test of the impact of agency in two different contribution mechanisms.The research will employ undergraduate students and will have practical implications for the management of charities and other nonprofit enterprises that rely on contributions.