Arbeitspapier

The Behavioral Mechanisms of Voluntary Cooperation across Culturally Diverse Societies: Evidence from the US, the UK, Morocco, and Turkey

We examine the role of cooperative preferences, beliefs, and punishments to uncover potential cross-societal differences in voluntary cooperation. Using one-shot public goods experiments in four comparable subject pools from the US and the UK (two similar Western societies) and Morocco and Turkey (two comparable non-Western societies), we find that cooperation is lower in Morocco and Turkey than in the UK and the US. Using the ABC approach – in which cooperative attitudes and beliefs explain cooperation – we show that cooperation is mostly driven by differences in beliefs rather than cooperative preferences or peer punishment, both of which are similar across the four subject pools. Our methodology is generalizable across subject pools and highlights the central role of beliefs in explaining differences in voluntary cooperation within and across culturally, economically, and institutionally diverse societies. Because our behavioral mechanisms correctly predict actual contributions, we argue that our approach provides a suitable methodology for analyzing the determinants of voluntary cooperation of any group of interest.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 10637

Classification
Wirtschaft
Design of Experiments: General
Publicly Provided Goods: General
Game Theory and Bargaining Theory: General
Production and Organizations: General
Subject
public goods
voluntary cooperation
ABC method
conditional cooperation
beliefs
punishment
cross-cultural experiments
WEIRD societies

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Weber, Till O.
Schulz, Jonathan F.
Beranek, Benjamin
Lambarraa-Lehnhardt, Fatima
Gaechter, Simon
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
(where)
Munich
(when)
2023

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Weber, Till O.
  • Schulz, Jonathan F.
  • Beranek, Benjamin
  • Lambarraa-Lehnhardt, Fatima
  • Gaechter, Simon
  • Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)

Time of origin

  • 2023

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