Understanding the nature of cooperation variability

Our paper investigates framing effects in a large-scale public good experiment. We measure indicators of explanations previously proposed in the literature, which when combined with the large sample, enable us to estimate a structural model of framing effects. The model captures potential causal effects and the heterogeneity of cooperation behavior. We find that framing only has a small effect on the average level of cooperation but a substantial effect on behavioral heterogeneity explained almost exclusively by a corresponding change in the heterogeneity of beliefs about other subjects' behavior. The impact of changes in preferences and game form misperception is on the other hand negligible.