The role of beliefs, trust and risk preferences in contributions to a public good

Citation

Kochera MG, Martinsson P, Matzat D & Wollbrant C (2015) The role of beliefs, trust and risk preferences in contributions to a public good. Journal of Economic Psychology, 51, pp. 236-244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2015.10.001

Abstract
This paper experimentally investigates if and how beliefs, trust, and risk attitudes are associated with cooperative behavior. By applying incentivized elicitation methods to measure these concepts, we find that beliefs about others' cooperation and trust are positively correlated with cooperation in a public goods game. However, even though contributing to a public good resembles a situation of making decisions under strategic uncertainty, elicited risk preferences do not seem to explain cooperation in a systematic way.

Keywords
public goods; cooperation; risk preferences; trust; experiment;

Journal
Journal of Economic Psychology: Volume 51