Threat of Sabotage as a Driver of Collective Action

Abstract A model is presented where the welfare of contributors to a public good can increase when they face an adversary who ex post sabotages their efforts. It best response for maximally sabotage smallest effort, thus increasing defector's marginal product effort. This creates kink in individual contributor's payoff function around equilibrium which lock into exerting high For sufficiently large degree complementarity between contributors’ efforts, increases welfare. result robust departing from several simplifying assumptions model.