We present experimental evidence for decision settings where public good providers compete for endogenous donations offered by outside donors. Donors receive benefits from public good provision but cannot provide the good themselves. The performance of three competition mechanisms is examined in...

This study presents novel evidence showing that group payments distributed proportional to effort are as effective as payments targeted to individuals in increasing public good provision. The decision setting includes donors who make transfer payments to public good providers. The institutions...

We examine the strategies interwar working-class British households used to “smooth” consumption over time and guard against negative contingencies such as illness, unemployment, and death. Newly discovered returns from the U.K. Ministry of Labour's 1937/38 Household Expenditure Survey are...

Abundant evidence suggests that high levels of contributions to public goods can be sustained through self-governed monitoring and sanctioning. This experimental study investigates the effectiveness of decentralized sanctioning institutions in alternative punishment networks. Our results show...