BETA - University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
Chair of Environmental Economics, Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus-Senftenberg, Cottbus, Germany.
PLoS One. 2022 Aug 25;17(8):e0273014. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273014. eCollection 2022.
This paper addresses the question of the effectiveness and permanence of temporary incentives to contribute to a public good. Using a common experimental framework, we investigate the effects of a recommendation that takes the form of an exhortative message to contribute, a monetary punishment and a non-monetary reward to sustain high levels of contributions. In particular, we shed light on the differential impact these mechanisms have on heterogeneous types of agents. The results show that all three incentives increase contributions compared to a pre-phase where there is no incentive. Monetary sanctions lead to the highest contributions, but a sudden drop in contributions is observed once the incentive to punish is removed. On the contrary, Recommendation leads to the lowest contributions but maintains a long-lasting impact in the Post-policy phase. In particular, it makes free-riders increase their contribution over time in the post-incentive phase. Finally, non-monetary reward backfires against those who are weakly conditional cooperators. Our findings emphasize the importance of designing and maintaining incentives not only for free-riders, but for strong and weak conditional cooperators as well, depending on characteristics of the incentives.
本文探讨了对公共产品进行临时性激励的有效性和持久性问题。我们使用了一个常见的实验框架，研究了以下三种机制对不同类型参与者的影响：以劝捐形式出现的建议、对低水平参与的货币性罚款、以及维持高水平参与的非货币性奖励。结果表明，与没有激励措施的预阶段相比，所有三种激励措施都能提高参与度。货币性罚款会带来最高的参与度，但一旦取消罚款激励，参与度就会突然下降。相反，建议带来的参与度最低，但在政策后阶段仍能产生持久影响。特别是，它使得搭便车者在激励后阶段逐渐增加了他们的贡献。最后，非货币性奖励对那些弱条件合作者产生了适得其反的效果。我们的研究结果强调了根据激励措施的特点，不仅要为搭便车者，而且要为强条件合作者和弱条件合作者设计和维持激励措施的重要性。
