Experience in public goods experiments
Using information on students’ past participation in economic experiments, we analyze whether behavior in public goods games is affected by experience (participation in social dilemma-type experiments) and history (participation in experiments different from social dilemmas). We find that: (1) on average, the amount subjects contribute and expect others to contribute decreases with experience; (2) at the individual level, the proportion of unconditional cooperators decreases with experience, while the proportion of selfish people increases.