Leveling up? An inter-neighborhood experiment on parochialism and the efficiency of multi-level public goods provision
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Mannheim: ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research GmbH, 2017. (ZEW - Discussion Papers; Vol. 17-012).
Research output: Working paper › Working papers
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TY - UNPB
T1 - Leveling up? An inter-neighborhood experiment on parochialism and the efficiency of multi-level public goods provision
AU - Gallier, Carlo
AU - Goeschl, Timo
AU - Kesternich, Martin
AU - Lohse, Johannes
AU - Reif, Christiane
AU - Römer, Daniel
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2017/2/22
Y1 - 2017/2/22
N2 - Many public goods can be provided at different spatial levels. Evidence from socialidentity 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.
AB - Many public goods can be provided at different spatial levels. Evidence from socialidentity 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.
KW - Artefactual field experiment
KW - Multi-level public goods
KW - Parochialism
KW - Social identity
KW - Economics
M3 - Working papers
T3 - ZEW - Discussion Papers
BT - Leveling up? An inter-neighborhood experiment on parochialism and the efficiency of multi-level public goods provision
PB - ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research GmbH
CY - Mannheim
ER -