The Impact of Elections on Cooperation
Evidence from a Lab‐in‐the‐Field Experiment in Uganda
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6232352 |
|---|---|
| Authors | G Grossman (0000-0002-6980-6390, California University of Pennsylvania), Delia Baldassarri (0000-0002-9264-035X, Princeton University) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 964-985 |
| Publication date | 2012-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00596.x |
| PMID | 23729913 |
| PMCID | PMC3666592 |
| OpenAlex | W2152663113 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 53 |
| References cited | 82 |
Communities often rely on sanctioning to induce public goods contributions. Past studies focus on how external agencies or peer sanctioning induce cooperation. In this article, we focus instead on the role played by centralized authorities, internal to the community. Combining “lab‐in‐the‐field” experiments with observational data on 1,541 Ugandan farmers from 50 communities, we demonstrate the positive effect of internal centralized sanctioning authorities on cooperative behavior. We also show that the size of this effect depends on the political process by which authority is granted: subjects electing leaders contribute more to public goods than subjects who were assigned leaders through a lottery. To test the ecological validity of our findings, we relate farmers’ behavior in the experiment to their level of cooperation in their community organization. We show that deference to authority in the controlled setting predicts cooperative behavior in the farmers’ natural environment, in which they face a similar social dilemma
Biology · Business · Deference · Dilemma · Economics · Experimental economics · Field (mathematics · Lottery · Microeconomics · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Public good · Public relations · Social dilemma · Test (biology · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Ecology · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
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| Unique citing works | 53 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,42 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2026 (13) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 53 |