Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T09:28:06.298Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Measuring conditional cooperation: a replication study in Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Benedikt Herrmann and
Christian Thöni
Benedikt Herrmann*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Nottingham, University Park, NG7 2RD Nottingham, UK
Christian Thöni*
Affiliation:
University of St. Gallen, FEW-HSG, Varnbüelstrasse 14, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland
*
e-mail: benedikt.herrmann@nottingham.ac.uk
e-mail: christian.thoeni@unisg.ch
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We replicate the strategy-method experiment by Fischbacher et al. (Econ. Lett. 71:397-404, 2001) developed to measure attitudes towards cooperation in a one-shot public goods game. We collected data from 160 students at four different universities across urban and rural Russia. Using the classification proposed by Fischbacher et al. (2001) we find that the distribution of types is very similar across the four locations. The share of conditional cooperators in our Russian subject pools is comparable to the one found by Fischbacher et al. in a Swiss subject pool. However, the distribution of the other types differs from the one found in Switzerland.

Keywords

Conditional cooperationReplicationRussia

JEL classification

H41: Public GoodsC91: Laboratory, Individual BehaviorC72: Noncooperative Games

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2009, pp. 87 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

We are grateful for the invaluable research assistance provided by Sergei Zorya, Lena Gerasimenko, Michael Belaev, Jevgenji Maslukov, Alexei Bibikov and Valerie Kowalenko. We also would like to thank the Universities of Agricultural Sciences Brijansk (Kokino), Samara (Ust-Kinel), the Belgorod State Technical Academy of Building Materials, and the All-Russian Distance Institute of Finance and Economics (ARDIFE) in Kursk for supporting us with the necessary infrastructure and Hans Kolb-Wellpappe Ltd. for the donation of cardboard screens used in the experiments. We are grateful for comments from Tim Cason, Therese Faessler, Simon Gächter, Nikhil Masters, and two anonymous referees.

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-008-9197-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

References

Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2002). Social capital and community governance. The Economic Journal, 112, 419–436.10.1111/1468-0297.00077CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croson, R. (2007). Theories of commitment, altruism and reciprocity: Evidence from linear public goods games. Economic Inquiry, 45, 199–216.10.1111/j.1465-7295.2006.00006.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1960). The division of labor in society (4th edn.). New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Fischbacher, U., & Gächter, S. (2006). Heterogeneous social preferences and the dynamics of free riding in public good. CeDEx Discussion Paper No. 2006-01, University of Nottingham.10.2139/ssrn.874928CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischbacher, U., Gächter, S., & Fehr, E. (2001). Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from public goods experiment. Economics Letters, 71, 397–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gächter, S. (2007). Conditional cooperation. Behavioral regularities from the lab and the field and their policy implications. In Frey, B. S. & Stutzer, A. (Eds.), Economics and psychology. A promising new cross-disciplinary field. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gächter, S., & Thöni, C. (2005). Social learning and voluntary cooperation among like-minded people. Journal of the European Economic Association, 3, 303–314.10.1162/jeea.2005.3.2-3.303CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gächter, S., Herrmann, B., & Thöni, C. (2005). Cross-cultural differences in norm enforcement. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 822–823.10.1017/S0140525X05290143CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keser, C., & van Winden, F. (2000). Conditional cooperation and voluntary contributions to public goods. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 102, 23–39.10.1111/1467-9442.00182CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kocher, M. G., Cherry, T., Kroll, S., Netzer, R. J., & Sutter, M. (2007). Conditional cooperation on three continents. Working Papers, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, University of Innsbruck.Google Scholar
Roth, A. E., Prasnikar, V., Okuno-Fujiwara, M., & Zamir, S. (1991). Bargaining and market behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An experimental study. American Economic Review, 81, 1068–1095.Google Scholar
Wirth, L. (1964). On cities and social life. In Reiss, A. J. (Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Herrmann and Thöni supplementary material

Herrmann and Thöni supplementary material
Download Herrmann and Thöni supplementary material(File)
File 78.4 KB