Would you share the call for a grant with those in your community or sector which you know can be your rivals in the process? “When I receive this kind of information I think my benefit is going to decrease when more people know about this information”, said Inês Vilela, job market candidate who visit the NCID last Monday 20th of January.

Vilela did a lab-in-the-field experiment in Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique with a community with an easy game. In one rivals competed for a share of an economic share, whilst in the other there was no competition for a share, but rather a fixed amount everybody would get. Her results show that those in the first rival game shared the game an 18% less than those in the second game, where everyone won the same regardless of sharing it or not.

Furthermore, Vilela also conducted experiments to evaluate how the same people shared invitations to two policy trainings on two distinct agricultural practices. Here initial seeders did not invite less people, but seeders rather invited people who had less contacts, less central in the community life and therefore less likely to share it with a larger amount of people.

This investigation shows that sometimes policy interventions are perceived as rival between those aimed at and therefore those diffusing it and aiming to reach the more people the better must be careful on how they do so, as people can decide to keep information for themselves in order to have higher chances of benefitting from such policy.