Does overconfidence promote cooperation? Theory and experimental evidence

摘要

This paper explores the potential "bright side" of overconfidence. We examine the effects of two types of overconfidence-overestimation and overprecision-on the contribution to the public good in a two-person threshold public good game. Experimental results show that the influence of overconfidence on contribution in public goods crucially depends on the agents' type of preferences. Overestimation leads to a higher contribution by conditional cooperators, but a lower contribution by free-riders. Overprecision, in general, leads to a higher contribution by conditional cooperators, but has little effect on the contribution of free-riders.