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Group Representation in Economic Decision-Making Experiments

This study investigates the impact of group representation on individual contributions to public goods games in economic settings. Participants from Spain and Japan engage in games with representatives and without, exploring cultural and individualistic influences. Initial findings show differences in contributions between the standard game and games with representatives. The study highlights the need for further data collection and analysis to fully understand the effects of group representation.

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Group Representation in Economic Decision-Making Experiments

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  1. Contributing for myself, but free-riding for my group Christiane Schwieren Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain Yoshio Iida, Kyoto Sangyo University, Japan

  2. Motivation • Decisions in many real-world economic settings are taken by representatives of groups • Little consideration in the experimental economic literature • Intuition & psychological literature suggest effect on behaviour

  3. Basic design • Public good game • Representatives of small (3-person) groups • 2*10 periods • Previous to play: Group discussion

  4. Potential moderating variables • Identification with own group • Social identity theory • Cultural aspects • Individualism vs. collectivism • Accountability

  5. Design of our first experiment • 2 * 2 design • Country: Spain vs. Japan • Treatment: Standard PG vs. PG of representatives • Discussion in groups of 3 subjects (5 min., any topic) • PG-game with 3 participants • 5 tokens to distribute • Token in personal account - 1 token for oneself (own group) • Token in group account - 0,75 token for everybody • Control-group design: 2 (anonymous) representatives of each group play at the same time • 2 * 10 periods, change in representatives

  6. Results of first phase by country • Spain: • No significant difference between representatives 1 and 2 • Contribution to PG in standard PG significantly higher than in game with representatives over all periods & in period 1 • Japan: • After exclusion of one outlier, no significant difference between representatives 1 and 2 • Over all periods, contribution to PG in standard PG significantly higher than in game with representatives • No significant difference in period 1

  7. Descriptive statistics over all periods: Man-Whitney U-test between treatments over all periods:

  8. Differences between treatments for first period

  9. Comparison between countries • No significant differences in contributions between countries • Neither in baseline nor in representative treatment • Potential reason: • Hofstede: Spain is high in collectivism • No good comparison group if interested in influence of western individualistic values • Maybe later data collection in Germany

  10. Discussion • Basic hypothesis about effect of being a group representative weakly confirmed • Country-differences not confirmed • Weak effects • group identification not very strong • No consequences, accountability low • Further data collection necessary

  11. Further research • Collection of more data necessary • Prior discussion with knowledge of game • Explicitly to discuss strategy of game • Second discussion period • Unknown before playing • Known before playing • Selection of representatives by group

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