Choosing between a socially efficient and free-riding equilibrium: Nurses versus economics and business students

Six groups of economics and business students and six groups of nurses each participated in a laboratory threshold public goods game. This game is consistent both with equilibria involving cooperative and an equilibrium involving non-cooperative behavior. This contrasts with other games in which economics and business students proved less cooperative than others in contexts consistent only with equilibria involving non-cooperative behavior. Nevertheless, in the threshold game, the students moved inexorably toward the strong free-riding equilibrium, cooperating far less than the nurses, who cycled around an efficient threshold equilibrium. Subject pool selection clearly affects equilibrium selection in the threshold framework. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.