Implementing punishment and reward in the public goods game: the effect of individual and collective decision rules

This data set contains the results of a laboratory experiment within the framework of Public Good Games. Subjects played Public Goods Games with opportunities for punishment or reward that was implemented either by an individual, a majority, or unanimously. A total number of 184 student subjects participated in the experiment (32% male; 34% economics major). Both the majority and unanimity sessions comprised 64 subjects in total, while 56 subjects were in a session which was held in the individual condition. The experiment comprised three parts, each with different settings and rules, thus varying conditions of group composition, ways of rewarding and punishments. The experiment was programmed using z-Tree (Fischbacher 2007) and conducted at the ELSE laboratory of Utrecht University. Subjects were recruited using the online recruiting system ORSEE (Greiner 2004). Twelve sessions were held, four in each experimental condition of which two with reward first and two with punishment first. Units of analysis are: 1) Groups of subjects 2) Subject Decisions. The data show that for both punishment and reward, contribution levels are higher in the individual than the majority condition, and higher under majority than unanimity. Moreover, often majority agreement or unanimity was not reached on punishments or rewards. For details on the experimental set-up, the analysis and discussion, please check the publication in the folder 'publication'