Salience, Coordination and Cooperation in Contributing to Threshold Public Goods
Abstract: We present results from a multiple public goods experiment, where each public good produces benefi ts only if total contributions to it reach a minimum threshold. The experiment allows us to compare subjects' behavior in a benchmark treatment with a single public good and in treatments with more public goods than can be funded. We show how the availability of numerous, more-efficient public goods may not make subjects better off. This is because multiple options decrease the probability of coordination and discourage contributions. The availability of several less-efficient options does not alter coordination and contributions relative to the benchmark.
