The role of beliefs, trust, and risk in contributions to a public good

Kocher, Martin; Martinsson, Peter; Matzat, Dominik and Wollbrant, Conny (2015): The role of beliefs, trust, and risk in contributions to a public good. In: Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 51, No. C: pp. 236-244

Abstract

This paper experimentally investigates if and how beliefs, trust, and risk attitudes are associated with cooperative behavior. By applying incentivized elicitation methods to measure these concepts, we find that beliefs about others’ cooperation and trust are positively correlated with cooperation in a public goods game. However, even though contributing to a public good resembles a situation of making decisions under strategic uncertainty, elicited risk preferences do not seem to explain cooperation in a systematic way.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Form of publication: Publisher's Version
• Keywords: Public goods; Cooperation; Risk preferences; Trust; Experiment
• Faculties: Economics > Chairs > Chair of Empirical Economics
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics
• JEL Classification: C91, D03, D64
• Language: English