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Power comes with responsibility—or does it?

Public Choice volume 148, pages 459–470 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

In a Public Good (PG) experiment, after playing it the standard way, one of the players (the allocator) is given power over the endowments of her co-players. Will the allocator show responsibility i.e., contribute most or all of her own as well as her co-players’ endowments? Can we thus improve the suboptimal level of voluntary provisions of public goods? The result is that, on average, all players are better off than in the standard PG game. In repetitions of the procedure, however, selfish behavior (contributing mainly the others’ endowments) becomes more and more frequent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

    Friedel Bolle & Claudia Vogel

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  1. Friedel Bolle
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  2. Claudia Vogel
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Correspondence to Claudia Vogel.

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Bolle, F., Vogel, C. Power comes with responsibility—or does it?. Public Choice 148, 459–470 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-010-9665-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-010-9665-y

Keywords

  • Responsibility
  • Public Good game
  • Experiments

JEL Classification

  • D61
  • H41