Paradise to parking lots: Creation versus maintenance of a public good

We offer further evidence that experiment framing significantly influences subject behavior. A Public Bad game strategically equivalent to the traditional Public Good game is designed. The Public Bad game is intended to simulate the decision to pollute or not pollute, a context that is likely to be more familiar to our subjects than those of previous studies. We find that subjects are more likely to take actions, at some cost to themselves, to create benefits for the group than they are to be inactive, at some cost to themselves, to create the same benefits for the group.