Title: Identity in Public Goods Contribution

Speaker: Fuhai Hong, Lingnan University

Time: December 14, 2020 13:30 – 15:00

Online seminar

Zoom ID:  931 678 9264

Password: 790971

About the speaker:

Fuhai Hong is an associate professor at the Department of Economics of Lingnan University. Before joining Lingnan, he taught at Nanyang Technological University and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. His research interest includes environmental and public economics, and behavioral and experimental economics. His research papers are published in such journals as American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Canadian Journal of Economics, Experimental Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, International Economic Review, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and Management Science.

Abstract:

Agents' decision whether to join a group, and their subsequent contribution to a public good, depend on the group's ideals. Agents have different preference for thispublic good, e.g. reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. People who become climate insiders obtain identity utility, but suffer disutility if they deviate from the group ideal. That ideal might create a wide but shallow group, having many members but little effect on behavior, or a narrow but deep group. Greater heterogeneity of preferences causes the contribution-maximizing ideal to create narrow but deep groups. The contribution-maximizing ideal maximizes welfare if the population is large.