Delegation and coordination with multiple threshold public goods: experimental evidence
通过实验研究多个慈善项目同时募资时，捐赠者通过中介机构协调捐款的效果，发现只有当中介承诺将捐款导向社会效益高的项目时，才能提高项目成功率和捐赠者收益。
Abstract When multiple charities, social programs and community projects simultaneously vie for funding, donors risk mis-coordinating their contributions leading to an inefficient distribution of funding across projects. Community chests and other intermediary organizations facilitate coordination among donors and reduce such risks. To study this, we extend a threshold public goods framework to allow donors to contribute through an intermediary rather than directly to the public goods. Through a series of experiments, we show that the presence of an intermediary increases public good success and subjects’ earnings only when the intermediary is formally committed to direct donations to socially beneficial goods. Without such a restriction, the presence of an intermediary has a negative impact, complicating the donation environment, decreasing contributions and public good success.