Competition for Status Creates Superstars: an Experiment on Public Good Provision and Network Formation
通过实验研究网络形成博弈中地位竞争如何促进公共品提供，发现竞争地位能激励核心玩家为整个群体实现效率提升，且结果支持“无挑战性”均衡概念。
Abstract We investigate a mechanism that facilitates the provision of public goods in a network formation game. We show how competition for status encourages a core player to realize efficiency gains for the entire group. In a laboratory experiment we systematically examine the effects of group size and exogenously monetarized status rents. The experimental results provide very clear support for the concept of challenge-freeness, a refinement that predicts when a repeated game equilibrium will be played, and if so which one. Two control treatments allow us to reject the possibility that these observations are driven by social preferences, independently of the competition for status.