Does a membership fee foster successful public good provision? An experimental investigation of the provision of a step-level collective good

We report the results of an experiment investigating the provision of a step-level collective good. This experiment compares the behavior of subjects in a public good game with the behavior of subjects in a club good game. In the club good game, players who do not contribute the membership fee are e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public choice 2013-10, Vol.157 (1/2), p.25-39
Main Authors: Bchir, Mohamed Ali, Willinger, Marc
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clubs
Consumption
Economics
Economics and Finance
Endowments
Environmental Sciences
Equilibrium
Experiment design
Experimental methods
Experiments
Fees
Fees & charges
Game theory
Games
Linear regression
Membership
Membership groups
Memberships
Nash equilibrium
Observed choices
Organizational behavior
Political Science
Psychological aspects
Public choice
Public Finance
Public good
Public Goods
Satellites
Studies
Threshing
Token money
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Summary:We report the results of an experiment investigating the provision of a step-level collective good. This experiment compares the behavior of subjects in a public good game with the behavior of subjects in a club good game. In the club good game, players who do not contribute the membership fee are excluded from the consumption of the collective good. The introduction of a small membership fee has surprisingly strong effects: it increases the provision of the collective good, delays provision failures and increases the number of contributors. The experiment also reveals the limits of the introduction of a small fee. At a high threshold level, the membership fee no longer ensures successful provision.
ISSN:0048-5829
1573-7101
DOI:10.1007/s11127-012-9929-9