Allocating a voluntarily provided common-property resource: An experimental examination

•The allocation of a voluntarily provided common-property resource (CPR) is examined in a laboratory experiment.•The primary mechanism of interest is the “allocator mechanism,” where one group member is randomly assigned as the “allocator.”.•After observing group members’ provision decisions, the allocator divides the CPR among the other group members.•Provision of the CPR is sustained over time with the allocator mechanism.•Provision of the CPR decays over time with each of the other two baseline mechanisms.