Leveling up? An inter-neighborhood experiment on parochialism and the efficiency of multi-level public goods provision

Research output: Working paperWorking papers

Authors

  • Carlo Gallier
  • Timo Goeschl
  • Martin Kesternich
  • Johannes Lohse
  • Christiane Reif
  • Daniel Römer
Many public goods can be provided at different spatial levels. Evidence from social
identity theory and in-group favoritism raises the possibility that where higher-level provision is more efficient, subjects’ narrow concern for local outcomes (parochialism) could harm efficiency. Building on the experimental paradigm of multi-level public good games and the ‘neighborhood attachment’ concept, we conduct an artefactual field experiment with 600 participants in a setting conducive to parochial behavior. In an inter-neighborhood intraregion design, subjects allocate an endowment between a personal account, a local, and a regional public good account. The between-subjects design varies across two dimensions: One informs subjects that the smaller local group consists of members from their own neighborhood (‘neighbors’). The other varies the relative productivity at the two public goods provision levels. We find evidence for parochialism, but contrary to our hypothesis, parochialism does not interfere with efficiency: The average subject responds to a change in relative productivities at the local and regional level in the same way, whether aware of their neighbors’ presence in the small group or not. The results even hold for subjects with above-median neighborhood attachment and subjects primed on neighborhood attachment.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationMannheim
PublisherZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research GmbH
Number of pages44
Publication statusPublished - 22.02.2017
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Artefactual field experiment, Multi-level public goods, Parochialism, Social identity
  • Economics

Recently viewed

Activities

  1. “Divert When It Does Not Hurt: The Initiation of Economic Sanctions by US Presidents from 1989 to 2015”
  2. HyperKult XXII - Standards, Normen, Protokolle - 2010
  3. Improving skills. Evidence from secondary analysis of international surveys 2012
  4. Environmental Accounting and Sustainable Development Indicators Conference - EMAN 2009
  5. Eine Intellektuellengeschichte linker Militanz
  6. Konferenz “European Governance – More Than a Catchword ?" 2003
  7. 3rd International Conference on Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust and 3rd International Conference on Social Computing 2011
  8. www.bwp-schriften.de (Zeitschrift)
  9. Kom­men­tar zu Eliz­a­beth Loshs Vor­trag zu »Sur­vi­val of Tools/​Su­vir­val­tools«, Trans­me­dia­le: »Pa­nic Room Ses­si­ons: Post-Di­gi­tal An­xie­ty«
  10. Shifts in Institutional Infrastructure Configurations: The Case of Integrated Care in Germany
  11. Blue Feelings: Emotion and Affect of Digital Police Work on Social Media
  12. Vortrag: Wertorientiertes Umweltmanagement und Shareholder Value
  13. Fakultät Nachhaltigkeit (Organisation)
  14. College (Organisation)
  15. Integrated Reporting Quality and Companies’ Ownership Structure: Does the Presence of Sustainable Investors Matter?
  16. Making out the Case of Discourse Markers in ELT von Buysse, Lieven, ESSE-8 (European Society for the Study of English)
  17. Referent zum Vorsorgeprinzip in EU-Freihandelsabkommen
  18. Environment, Development and Sustainability (Zeitschrift)
  19. ÖAR (Externe Organisation)
  20. Kolloquium ,,Qualitative und quantitative Forschungsmethoden"