ABSTRACT
Public policy is frequently used to induce individuals to contribute to public goods when it may be in their private interests to free-ride off the contributions of others. To explore how individuals behave in various public goods decision settings and to gain insights into how institutions might be better designed to encourage the provision of public goods, economists employ laboratory experiments. The cornerstone of experimental investigations on the private provision of public goods is the voluntary contributions mechanism (VCM). Understanding behavior in experimental implementations of the VCM game is critical for the work of economists with institutional and policy-oriented interests.
