Detecting motives for cooperation in public goods experiments

This study clarifies the types of motives that are important as a source of cooperation in a linear public goods experiment. Our experimental design separates the contributions due to confusion, one-shot motives (which includes altruism, warm-glow, inequality aversion, and conditional cooperation), and multi-round motives (which includes a strategic motive under incomplete information, a failure of backward induction, and reciprocity). The experiment reveals that multi-round motives plays an important role in driving cooperative behavior. Confusion and one-shot motives play a minor role.