An Experimental Study Of Collective Action

COLLECTIVE action is the action with N (N>2) persons who share the same framwork of the game and want to achieve the same target. This dissertation focuses on the experimental study on the category of the collective actions. We have built a theoritical framwork to explain the collecive action and classified it into three types based on their targets, that were Group Wellfare Leading, Social Wellfare Leading and Others’Wellfare Leading (GWL, SWL and OWL for short). We assumpt that the mirco motivation can be summarized as two factors, which are preference and rationality, then we expand the definition of them.For preference, we assumpt the participants of collective action games have individual preference structures, which are the combination of three dimensions:selfish preference, impure social preference and pure social preference. The individual preference will adapt the situation by changing its structure basing on the framwork of decision making. For rationality, we assumpt that part of the participants have strategy foresight, they can realize the Pareto-dominated result of the use of dominate equlibrium in which people choose not to cooperate, then they will try to coorprate rather than free-riding to achieve a Pareto efficient result if they expect there will be enough farsighted ones.Based on these assumptions, we analyze several types of collective action. For the GWL, we built models of volunteer contribution mechniasm(VCM) for the linear public goods. Two kinds of first order SWL games are studied by modeling, that were collective resistence games and pioneer games. We focused on the private ordering governance of first order collective action and the change of social norms, which were the main content of the second order SWL games.We did the experimental studies based on the theoritical analysis. For the GWL games, the one-shot public good games had been did which highlighted foresight and repeated public good games with restart. For the first order SWL games, we run the collective resistence experiments in which the proposer could make a distribution and the recievers could choose to accept or reject. We designed the treatments to explore the effects of leadship, sequential and asymetric decision making, smaller group size and information symetric,etc. On the experimental study of pioneer games, we designed parameters of the exogenous difficulty of collective action, the static and dynamic procedur and gain-loss decision making framwork. For the second order SWL games, we implemented public good experiments with voting for alternative sanction mechanisms. In the experiments, subjects had heterogeneous value of public good, which could be lowed, and the established social norms could be removed exogenously.The main conclusions of this dissertattion are as follows.Firstly, theoretical analysis show that, the person with a preference structure which is combinated by selfish and social preference will be more likely to make contributions. The money she puts into the public account dependents on the value of public goods, the weight of the social preference and the strength of inequality aversion. The experimental results show that, the individual contribution of one-shot VCM games would be significantly higher in the first play than the second play in the treatment in which foresight was emphasized in the first play. However it is not ture in the game in which the foresight was emphasized in the second play. The questionare results show part of the subjects are farsighted ones, who make truely higher contribution.So the person with foresight will make contribution, which is in accordence with rationality. The results of repeated games support hypothesis of experience, foresight and reciprocity. The regression results confirmed the conditional cooperation. Generally speaking, in the one-shot games, the micro motivation of cooperation are altruism, inequality aversion and foresight. However, reciprocity drives the cooperation in long-run games.Secondary, theoretical analysis show that, if all the players are selfish, the proposer will use the DAC(Dividend and Conquer) strategy succesfully, at which time the resistence will not happen. However, the social preference, forsight and some features of the games can totally lead to collective action. In the experiments, the proposers are mainly selfish ones who used DAC strategy. Disclosure of the ditrisbution made by the proposers would coordinate collective resistence effectively, Expecting this, the proposer would turn to more equally distribution. The leaders prefered to advise the responders to resist in the treatment with leadship, while there were less collective resistence in the sequential asymetric treatments. In the pioneer games, the exogenous difficulty significantly influence the order which the players choose to participate in the movement. Some movement group had been built.Thirdly, the model of second order social wellfare orientation collective action argued that, the higher the participants’ value of the public goods are, the more efficient social norms they will choose. When the value goes down or the more efficient social norms disappeared exogenously, the social norms will change. A the same time, a path dependence will happen because of cognition cost and the self-enhance features of the existing norms. The experimental results found that the subjects finally choose the self-enhance and Pareto efficient so-cial norms. They insisted on choosing these norms and holding the belief that the efficient norms would be chosen even under the external shocks. Choosing the norms, the players mainly considered the efficiency of sanction.The main contributions of this dissertation may be as follows:(a) we created a general framwork to explain why and how the collective action happens, and classified the collective actions;(b)we developed the preference structure and foresight assumptions, explained the collective actions based on these;(c)we extended the collective resistence games to a multiple player and sequential situation. We also created a pioneer game;(d)we run the social norms and belief changing experiments.However, there are also some disadvantages of this dissertation:the sample choosing and size, the axiom base of the preference structure theory, the lack of games learning and the evolutional approach, etc. We will consider these in our later researches.The practical meaning of this research is the reference value to the social governance and policy making about collective actions. While the economy develops quickly and people’s request turns to be multiplex, the collective action is preseting to be normal in morden society, including China. The sucessful governance experience of collective action shows that, the collective action should be treated differently. We should institutionalize and normalize the collective action with reasonable request and method, and dredge and suppress the the collective action with unreasonable request and method. The studies on collective action could also be useful in corporate governance and business. For example, the main companies in the same industry should create an association to regulate the members’ behavior, supply business order or other public goods, and take collective action to protect the right of the industry. Collective action research will be helpful to imporve the correctness of the group decision of the board or the executives, exploit the informal organizations in the company, or deal with staffs’collective resistence. Overall,this dissertation supports the governance of collective action theoritically, and supplies some references about the early-warning system and resolutions of the collective actions.