Conflict and coordination in the provision of public goods: a conceptual analysis of continuous and step-level games

Conflicts between individual and collective interests are ubiquitous in social life. Experimental studies have investigated the resolution of such conflicts using public goods games with either continuous or step-level payoff functions. Game theory and social interdependence theory identify consequential differences between these two types of games. Continuous function games are prime examples of social dilemmas because they always contain a conflict between individual and collective interests, whereas step-level games can be construed as social coordination games. Step-level games often provide opportunities for coordinated solutions that benefit both the collective and the individuals. For this and other reasons, the authors conclude that one cannot safely generalize results obtained from step-level to continuous-form games (or vice versa). Finally, the authors identify specific characteristics of the payoff function in public goods games that conceptually mark the transition from a pure dilemma to a coordination problem nested within a dilemma.