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 g ame is consistent both with equilibria involving cooperative and an eq uilibrium involving non-cooperative behavior. This contrasts with othe r games in which economics and business students proved less cooperati ve than others in contexts consistent only with equilibria involving n on-cooperative behavior. Nevertheless, in the threshold game, the stud ents moved inexorably toward the strong free-riding equilibrium, coope rating far less than the nurses, who cycled around an efficient thresh old equilibrium. Subject pool selection clearly affects equilibrium se lection in the threshold framework. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.