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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-95). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

The thesis consists of three essays. In the first essay, the role of party politics in provision of public goods within a federal economy is analyzed. The public goods, which have inter-jurisdictional spillover effect, are locally produced with federal transfers and local revenues. The federal government can not commit to the level of transfers. The direction and magnitude of federal fund flows are influenced by local revenues as well as the re-election probability of the parties in power at the federal and provincial levels. Under such a scenario, politically motivated grants alter the incentive for raising local revenues. If votes swing heavily in favor of either the incumbent or the challenger in the provincial elections and/or if the coefficients for absolute prudence from the utility of public good are low enough, then grants are designed in such a way that the incentive for increasing revenues is lower in the province where the party identity is similar with the federal government. If these conditions are not met, such incentive is higher in the politically favorite regime. This result is generalized over different combinations of ruling parties in different seats of government. / In the second essay, the issue of dynamic public good provision within a federation is analyzed. Provinces lobby for more federal funds to produce a pure, dynamic public good such as an improvement in environmental quality. Allocation of federal funds is dictated by the level of lobbying. Consumers' welfare equals utility from the public good, net of lobbying cost. For symmetric provinces, the steady state lobbying level and stock of public good may be greater in the case when lobbyists are non-benevolent and captures a part of the federal grant as private rent. Second, with a rent-appropriating lobbyist, the welfare of the consumers may be higher under non-cooperative lobbying protocol. In case of asymmetric provinces, welfare may 'flow' from the less efficient province to the more efficient province, violating equalization principle within a federation. / In the third essay, the disciplinary role of elections is discussed. The incumbent politician in a province, with locally procured taxes, provides a local public good and appropriates some private rent. The incumbent's reputation decreases with the amount of rent. Voters may judge the performance of the incumbent in two ways: either his absolute performance matters or his performance is compared with that of the neighboring provinces' incumbent through yardstick competition. In a static setting, the unitary evaluation fares better than relative evaluation in restraining the politician. However, in a dynamic setting, when the stock of reputation increases through time, a relative evaluation imposes higher discipline on incumbent politician.

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The boon of public goods to a society is its inclusive nature where no individual can be restricted from enjoying its fruits. However, this very feature generates proclivity among individuals in the society to escape paying their share towards creation of the public good, which is known as free-riding. Interestingly, contribution levels in reality surpass predictions suggested by theoretical findings. To understand and assuage the free-riding problem, we study a public good game where individuals in a society form small groups or coalitions to carry out collective decisions about contribution levels. Such cooperative action is further augmented when we account for social and other-regarding preferences in individuals, which make them care about well-being of others. While social preferences are well documented in other economic environments, their effect on the formation, likelihood and size of coalitions to provide public goods is not well understood. This dissertation uses both theoretical and experimental methods to incorporate social preferences into the study of coalition formation and how such coalitions affect the provision of the public good. In any public good provision problem, marginal per capita return (MPCR) is an important determinant. For every dollar a person spends on privately providing the public good, the MPCR measures how much the individual gets back. Conventional theory suggests an inverse relationship between coalition size and MPCR, which stands contrary to recent experimental evidences. My dissertation uses heterogenous social preferences to arrive at sufficient conditions which establishes a positive relationship between coalition size and MPCR. Chapter 2 theoretically investigates the conditions required to achieve a positive relationship between coalition size and MPCR when an individual's social preference is private information. The model is a two-stage public good game, where in the first stage individuals decide whether or not to join the coalition and then in the next stage, the coalition votes to contribute to public good. The results suggest that individuals with pro social preferences are more likely to join the coalition and upon joining always contribute to the public good. Higher MPCR further increase an individual's likelihood to join coalition and contribute to public good. The results hold true under different model specifications as well. Chapter 3 test the theoretical predictions of Chapter 2 by using an experiment. In the experiment, subject's payoff is determined by exogenously inducing social preferences into an individual's payoff function. The experiment validates the predictions of theoretical model and we find that individuals who have lower weight on their own payoff are likely to join the coalition and also vote to contribute to public good. Higher return from public good also results in larger coalition size and increases the likelihood to contribute to public good. Chapter 4 also tests the theoretical prediction, however, here the preferences are estimated by using an incentivized task based on how much money they are willing to give to someone else. The outcomes from the incentivized task suggest that individuals who give more money to others are more likely to join the coalition and also contribute to public good. High MPCR ensures larger coalition size and more individuals contributing to public good. We also find that coalition size have a positive impact on individual's decision to join the coalition and contribute. / Doctor of Philosophy / Public goods like healthcare services, free-vaccinations, cleaner environment is an important parameter to the development of a society. The primary features of these goods are non-excludability – no one can be excluded from enjoying the benefit of the good and non-rivalry such that multiple individuals can enjoy its benefits. These features allow many to free-ride and escape contribution towards the provision of the public good. In this dissertation, we study how coalitions amongst people in a society can potentially assuage the free-riding problem. International Environment Agreements (IEA) such as Kyoto Protocol, Paris agreement are some of the examples of existing coalitions. While in practice coalitions, i.e., subgroups of individuals who agree to act collectively to produce a public good exist, the conditions under which these coalitions are most likely to form are not well understood. In this dissertation we incorporate facets of Behavioral Economics to understand functioning of coalitions which will allow to incorporate various behavioral and other-regarding preferences to study economic outcomes. Other-regarding preferences assume that individuals also care about the well-being of others. The dissertation uses both theory and experiments to understand and test the conditions required for successful coalition formation through behavioral economics-based explanations. A society is comprised of heterogeneous individuals who value public good differently and so have different willingness to pay. For example, not everyone is equally willing to pay for the construction of a public park. We exploit such heterogeneity to understand how efficient coalitions can be formed such that it increases chances of public good provision. We construct a two-stage game where individuals choose whether or not to join the coalition in the first stage. Once individuals learn the size of the coalition they can determine whether it is desirable for them to contribute to the public good in the second stage. As a result, despite individual social preferences being private information, our mechanism increases the size of the public good and thus outcome efficiency. The design of our model also helps to test these predictions by using human subjects' experiments. We find that individuals who care more the well-being of others join the coalition and also contribute to the public good. An increase in benefit from public good also increases the likelihood of higher coalition size and higher contribution levels. In its scientific mission, the study aims to understand importance of heterogenous society in successful provisioning of public goods.

This dissertation includes three chapters that utilize experimental methods to answer questions relating to social choices. Social choice is a broad category that can incorporate an individual’s choices when it comes to charitable giving, providing a public good or creating externalities through one’s choices. In the first chapter “To Be or Not To Be Corrupt: An Experimental Study on Bribery” I designed a modified version of the bribery game used in Abbink et al. (2002) to study whether information on the prevalence of bribery activity within the experimental environment has an effect on behavior. In addition it also tests whether this prevalence effect can be reduced by implementing a strict punishment. In the second chapter “Can Cooperative Behavior Improve Efficiency in Public Good Provision?” laboratory experiments are used to test whether information about the cooperative behavior of the group members in a trust game affects contribution to a public good game. The first part of the design utilizes a trust game to measure the cooperative behavior of the subjects. This information is provided in the public goods game to see if there is an effect on contributions. The essay also looks at if there is an effect on contribution, and if that effect lasts over time or it merges towards a selfish-man equilibrium of no contribution. The third chapter “Means and Ends in Charitable Giving for Environmental Protection: A Discussion” conducts a discussion on the charitable giving literature related to environmental charities and builds a simple model of warm glow to show that the attributes of an environmental charity may affect giving. The model can also be used to consider attributes on how the money is used. For example, whether there is a difference when a market-based mechanism like Payment for Environmental Services (PES) is used versus more traditional mechanism like education on alternative livelihood. It then proposes a possible design for a field experiment to test the hypotheses.

Currently, the argument that markets cannot provide public goods underlies the justification of political authority most widely accepted by political theorists. Yet, as theorists usually depict the problem, public goods could be voluntarily produced at levels of efficiency comparable to those attainable by coercion. Once we allow that the real problem is much more messy than its theoretical models led us to believe, we have to admit that coercion may be necessary after all. At the same time, we have to admit that the moral problem of justifying coercion is also more messy than we thought, and for precisely the same reason. I discuss contractual mechanisms for voluntary public goods provision, arguing that with such a mechanism, voluntary contribution levels might be much higher than conventional theories predict. My theory is borne out in laboratory experiments. Still, it remains an open question whether it would be worth the trouble to switch from the coercive methods presently employed to noncoercive (or less coercive) methods of public goods provision. A strictly efficient method is not among our options. We have to assess the efficiency of various methods in a relative sense. Should we find cases in which public goods cannot be provided by contract, or should we decide that in some cases we do not even want to risk trying voluntary methods, we are forced to face the moral issue squarely. I offer a traditional analysis of justice, although I employ it in a somewhat unorthodox way in drawing conclusions about the moral status of private property in a well-ordered society. I then use this analysis to develop a foundation for property rights, exploring its implications for questions concerning what people are morally obliged to do, and what they can legitimately be forced to do, for the sake of public goods production.

Purpose - The authors propose that angry individuals are much more likely to consider the emotional state of their partner than are neutral individuals. They then apply a lay theory dictating that anger decreases cooperation and react accordingly by lowering their own level of cooperation. Design/methodology/approach - The authors report four experiments involving different samples, manipulations, payment schemes and interfaces. The methodological approach was to capitalize on the positives of experimental research (e.g. establishing causality) while also trying to conceptually replicate the findings in different settings. Findings - The authors found evidence for a lay theory (i.e. expectation) that anger decreases cooperation, but that actual cooperation was lowest when angry individuals were paired with other angry individuals, supporting the hypotheses. Research limitations/implications - Anger can spill over from unrelated contexts to affect cooperation, and incidental anger by itself is not enough to decrease cooperation. However, the findings are limited to anger and cannot necessarily be used to understand the effects of other emotions. Practical implications - Before entering into a context that requires cooperation, such as a negotiation, be wary of the emotional state of both yourself and of your partner. This paper suggests that only if both parties are angry, then the likelihood of cooperation is low. Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, they are the first researchers to address the question of how incidental anger affects single-round cooperation. By going back to the basics, the authors believe that the findings fill a gap in existing research and offer a building block for future research on anger and cooperation.

Fung, Mang Yan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 48-55). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.4 / Chinese Abstract --- p.5 / Introduction --- p.6 / Study 1 --- p.16 / Method --- p.16 / Results --- p.21 / Discussion --- p.26 / Study 2 --- p.26 / Method --- p.28 / Results --- p.33 / Discussion --- p.41 / General Discussion --- p.42 / References --- p.48 / Appendix A --- p.56 / Appendix B --- p.58 / Appendix C --- p.63 / Appendix D --- p.65