Abstract

We conduct a public good game with technological growth. In our endogenous growth treatment, subjects invest in the public good production technology (“contribution productivity”) and make contributions to provision. In the exogenous growth treatment, we increase contribution productivity at a rate that matches the growth in the endogenous growth treatment. We also have a control treatment in which there is no growth. With endogenous growth, subjects initially invest high and contribute low amounts, and shift their expenditure from investment to contributions as the rounds proceed. In a second sequence of rounds, average earnings are higher than in the first sequence. While the patterns of contributions are generally similar in the exogenous growth treatment, it is only with endogenous growth that average earnings are higher in the second sequence than in the first.

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Ngo, J., & Smith, A. (2020). A public good game with technological growth. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2019.101487

*denotes a WPI undergraduate student author