Public Good Contributions Among Coffee Farmers in Costa Rica: Cooperativists and Private Market Participants.

We present an experimental lab-in-the-field study on co?ee farmers in Costa Rica, to investigate the importance of real world institutions on abstract game behavior. Farmers participated in experimental public-good games with partners drawn either from their own or di?erent from their own background (members of a cooperative or free market traders). While free market participants are largely uninfluenced in their decisions by the identity of their partners, cooperativists strongly react to it. Behavior of cooperativists in the experiment is predicted through real world behavior, experience and motivations. Specifically, labels that create additional institutional constraints (Fair Trade, Rainforest alliance) influence behavior.