This meta-analysis explores whether leading-by-example increases contributions in public goods experiments. I find that leadership overall improves public good provision significantly, whereas leaders benefit less than followers. The reason is that followers match the leader’s contributions imperfectly and, on average, only contribute about 79% of the leader’s contribution. Consequently, only a small proportion of group members are willing to bear the burden of leadership. Despite this, leaders are usually not worse off compared to an average player in a simultaneous game without a leader. In general, leadership becomes more effective when one adds transactional elements like punishment and reward, whereas it becomes less effective if there is frequent change (rotating leadership).

这项荟萃分析探讨了以身作则是否会增加公共物品实验的贡献。我发现领导力总体上显着改善了公共物品的供给，而领导者的收益却低于追随者。原因是追随者的贡献与领导者的贡献不完全匹配，平均而言，只贡献了领导者贡献的 79% 左右。因此，只有一小部分群体成员愿意承担领导重担。尽管如此，在没有领导者的同时游戏中，领导者的情况通常不会比普通玩家差。一般来说，当增加惩罚和奖励等交易元素时，领导力会变得更加有效，而如果频繁发生变化（轮换领导力），领导力就会变得不那么有效。