On increased risk and the voluntary provision of public goods (Q922921)

Quoted from the abstract: ``This paper examines the impacts of increased risk on the voluntary provision of public goods. I strengthen the view that uncertainty ameliorates free riding even given negative non-Nash conjectures.'' Conjectures are said to be ``negative non-Nash'' if individuals assume that by increasing own contributions other individuals respond by reducing their contributions to the public goods provision. The main result exhibits a condition ensuring increased voluntary contributions in equilibrium. The condition assumes that increased risk has a non- increasing impact on perceived free-riding. The result has two implications, one comforting and one irritating. First, an individual guided by self-interest will increase voluntary contributions to the public goods provision given increased risk regarding the behaviour of other individuals. Second, a public policy that aims at suppressing information concerning private patterns of contributions to public goods may decrease the free-riding behaviour of risk-averse individuals. The latter stands in marked contrast to the intuition conveyed by \textit{R. Cornes} and \textit{T. Sandler} [ibid. 6, No.3, 243-251 (1989; Zbl 0677.90013)] according to which public information of private contributions would help to fight free-riding.