2016/41 | LEM Working Paper Series | ||||||||||||||||
When the two ends meet: an experiment on cooperation across the Italian North-South divide |
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Pietro Battiston and Simona Gamba |
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Keywords | |||||||||||||||||
public good, cooperation, social capital, cultural differences, laboratory experiment
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JEL Classifications | |||||||||||||||||
A13, C71, C92, H41
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Abstract | |||||||||||||||||
We study the behavior of individuals coming from different geographic
regions of Italy, in a same public good game. We confirm previous
findings according to which, faced with the same incentives and
experimental conditions, Southern citizens exhibit a lower propensity
to cooperate than Northern ones. This difference is mainly explained
by a gap in the impact of coordination devices available to
participants, as we show by manipulating them. Most importantly, when
subjects with different geographic origins are teamed up together,
their contributions decrease with respect to homogeneous groups, again
because of a reduced effect of coordination devices. These findings
reinforce the interpretation of the Italian South-North divide as
related to trust, prejudice and a consequent path-dependence in levels
of social capital, rather than due to the mere effect of differences
in institutions and economic opportunities.
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