An
Experimental Dynamic Public Goods Game with Carryover
John Cadigan
Gettysburg College
Pamela Schmitt
U. S. Naval Academy
Kurtis Swope
U. S. Naval Academy
Patrick Wayland
U.S. Naval Academy
Abstract
We examine
voluntary
contributions in a two-stage public good experiment with ‘carryover.’
In two
treatments, each subject’s second-stage endowment is determined by the
return from
the public good in the first-stage. We manipulate payoffs across
treatments
such that, relative to our no-carryover baseline, earnings from either
Nash Equilibrium
(constant NE) play or Pareto Optimal (constant PO) play are held
constant. The
remaining two treatments maintain a constant endowment in each stage,
but vary
the marginal per capita return (MPCR high or MCPR low) to contributions
in the second-stage.
Our results indicate that carryover increases first-stage
contributions. Our
implementation of carryover enables us to examine the effects of
changing
endowments and a wide range of MPCR’s. Consistent with the literature,
we find
that MPCR and endowment effects are important determinants of subject
contributions to the group account. While stage 1 contributions tend to
increase in the presence of carryover, efficiency levels across both
stages fall
relative to the baseline. Efficiency levels fall because the maximum
earnings
possible increase with carryover (due to higher endowments or MPCR
levels in
stage 2).