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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Till Weber
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
We examine the role of cooperative preferences, beliefs, and punishments to uncover potential cross-societal differences in voluntary cooperation. Using one-shot public goods experiments in four comparable subject pools from the US and the UK (two similar Western societies) and Morocco and Turkey (two comparable non-Western societies), we find that cooperation is lower in Morocco and Turkey than in the UK and the US. Using the ABC approach – in which cooperative attitudes and beliefs explain cooperation – we show that cooperation is mostly driven by differences in beliefs rather than cooperative preferences or peer punishment, both of which are similar across the four subject pools. Our methodology is generalizable across subject pools and highlights the central role of beliefs in explaining differences in voluntary cooperation within and across culturally, economically, and institutionally diverse societies. Because our behavioral mechanisms correctly predict actual contributions, we argue that our approach provides a suitable methodology for analyzing the determinants of voluntary cooperation of any group of interest.
Author(s): Weber TO, Schulz JF, Beranek B, Lambarraa-Lehnhardt F, Gächter S
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Year: 2023
Volume: 215
Pages: 134-152
Print publication date: 01/11/2023
Online publication date: 21/09/2023
Acceptance date: 02/09/2023
Date deposited: 22/09/2023
ISSN (print): 0167-2681
Publisher: Elsevier BV
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.09.006
DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.09.006
Data Access Statement: Data, software, and analysis codes are available at https://osf.io/m3u7v/
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