Strategizing in Small Group Decision-Making: Host State Identification for Radioactive Waste Disposal among Eight Southern States.

Abstract

Experimental work in economics has long focussed attention on strategic interaction amongst individuals. A robust result is that a large fraction of participants in public-goods experiments act cooperatively. This paper tests for the extent of strategic behavior in a nonlaboratory setting. These data were generated when representatives from eight southeastern states voted to identify one state as host for a regional disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste. The authors find that no state plays its dominant (free-riding) strategy but none plays in a completely cooperative fashion either. This result is similar to that found in laboratory public-goods experiments. Copyright 1995 by Kluwer Academic Publishers