Tongzhe Li (University of Guelph): ''Rooted in Local Soil, Not Swept byGlobal Wind: A Field Experiment on Impure Public Goods''

Abstract:
Impure public goods offer not only private benefits but also public benefits at different scales. Campaigns and policies promoting them therefore encounter a pivotal question regarding the effectiveness of emphasizing their private, public local, and public global characteristics. To address this question, we conduct a field experiment with 878 representative agricultural producers participating in cost-share bidding for nitrogen stabilizer, an important impure public good. Results show emphasizing its private benefits positively impacts bids, followed by its public local benefits, but such effect is insignificant for public global benefits. A notable outcome is that combining private and public appeals results in lower bids than presenting the private appeal alone, indicating that a more-is-better approach does not hold in this context.