Redistribution and Group Participation : Experimental Evidence from Africa and the UK
This paper investigates whether the prospect of redistribution hinders the formation of efficiency-enhancing groups. An experiment is conducted in a Kenyan slum, Ugandan villages, and a UK university town and used to test, in an anonymous setting w...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/208861517841440138/Redistribution-and-group-participation-experimental-evidence-from-Africa-and-the-UK http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29318 |
| Summary: | This paper investigates whether the
prospect of redistribution hinders the formation of
efficiency-enhancing groups. An experiment is conducted in a
Kenyan slum, Ugandan villages, and a UK university town and
used to test, in an anonymous setting with no feedback,
whether subjects join a group that increases their endowment
but exposes them to one of three redistributive actions:
stealing, giving, or burning. Exposure to redistributive
options among group members operates as a disincentive to
join a group. This finding obtains under all three
treatments -- including when the pressure to redistribute is
intrinsic. However, the nature of the redistribution affects
the magnitude of the impact. Giving has the least impact on
the decision to join a group, whilst forced redistribution
through stealing or burning acts as a much larger deterrent
to group membership. These findings are common across all
three subject pools, but African subjects are particularly
reluctant to join a group in the burning treatment,
indicating strong reluctance to expose themselves to
destruction by others. |
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