Competition, cooperation, and collective choice

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

The ability of groups to implement efficiency-enhancing institutions is emerging as a central theme of research in economics. This paper explores voting on a scheme of intergroup competition, which facilitates cooperation in a social dilemma situation. Experimental results show that the competitive scheme fosters cooperation. Competition is popular, but the electoral outcome depends strongly on specific voting rules of institutional choice. If the majority decides, competition is almost always adopted. If likely losers from competition have veto power, it is often not, and substantial gains in efficiency are foregone
Original languageEnglish
JournalEconomic Journal
Volume124
Issue number574
Pages (from-to)F163-F195
Number of pages33
ISSN0013-0133
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

ID: 82129010