Civic Engagement as a Second-Order Public Good: The Cooperative Underpinnings of the Accountable State
Publikation: Working paper › Forskning
Standard
Civic Engagement as a Second-Order Public Good : The Cooperative Underpinnings of the Accountable State. / Kamei, Kenju; Putterman, Louis; Tyran, Jean-Robert Karl.
2019.Publikation: Working paper › Forskning
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Author
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
T1 - Civic Engagement as a Second-Order Public Good
T2 - The Cooperative Underpinnings of the Accountable State
AU - Kamei, Kenju
AU - Putterman, Louis
AU - Tyran, Jean-Robert Karl
PY - 2019/9/13
Y1 - 2019/9/13
N2 - Effective states provide public goods by taxing their citizens and imposing penalties for non-compliance. However, accountable government requires that enough citizens are civically engaged. We study the voluntary cooperative underpinnings of the accountable state by conducting a two-level public goods experiment in which civic engagement can build a sanction scheme to solve the first-order public goods dilemma. We find that civic engagement can be sustained at high levels when costs are low relative to the benefits of public good provision. This cost-to-benefit differential yields what we call a “leverage effect” because it transforms modest willingness to cooperate into the larger social dividend from the power of taxation. In addition, we find that local social interaction among subgroups of participants also boosts cooperation.
AB - Effective states provide public goods by taxing their citizens and imposing penalties for non-compliance. However, accountable government requires that enough citizens are civically engaged. We study the voluntary cooperative underpinnings of the accountable state by conducting a two-level public goods experiment in which civic engagement can build a sanction scheme to solve the first-order public goods dilemma. We find that civic engagement can be sustained at high levels when costs are low relative to the benefits of public good provision. This cost-to-benefit differential yields what we call a “leverage effect” because it transforms modest willingness to cooperate into the larger social dividend from the power of taxation. In addition, we find that local social interaction among subgroups of participants also boosts cooperation.
KW - civic engagement
KW - public goods provision
KW - punishment
KW - experiment
KW - cooperation
KW - C92
KW - D02
KW - D72
KW - H41
U2 - 10.2139/ssrn.3448470
DO - 10.2139/ssrn.3448470
M3 - Working paper
T3 - University of Copenhagen. Institute of Economics. Discussion Papers (Online)
BT - Civic Engagement as a Second-Order Public Good
ER -
ID: 241647779