Coordination in public good provision: how individual volunteering is impacted by the volunteering of others

Theodoros Diasakos, Florence Neymotin

    Research output: Working paper

    Abstract

    In this analysis, we examine the relationship between an individual's decision to volunteer and the average level of volunteering in the community where the individual resides. Our theoretical model is based on a coordination game , in which volunteering by others is informative regarding the bene t from volunteering. We demonstrate that the interaction between this information and one's private information makes it more likely that he or she will volunteer, given a higher level of contributions by his or her peers. We complement this theoretical work with an empirical analysis using Cen- sus 2000 Summary File 3 and Current Population Survey (CPS) 2004-2007 September supplement le data. We control for various individual and community characteristics, and employ robustness checks to verify the results of the baseline analysis. We addi- tionally use an innovative instrumental variables strategy to account for re ection bias and endogeneity caused by selective sorting by individuals into neighborhoods, which allows us to argue for a causal interpretation. The empirical results in the baseline, as well as all robustness analyses, verify the main result of our theoretical model, and we employ a more general structure to further strengthen our results.
    Original languageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of St Andrews
    Number of pages46
    Publication statusPublished - Jul 2013

    Publication series

    NameSchool of Economics & Finance Discussion Paper
    PublisherUniversity of St Andrews
    No.1402
    ISSN (Print)0962-4031
    ISSN (Electronic)2055-303X

    Keywords

    • Stochastic coordination
    • Volunteer work
    • Public goods

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