Endowment inequality in public goods games: A re-examination

Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap, Abhijit Ramalingam, Brock V. Stoddard

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60 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

We present a clean test of whether inequality in endowments affects contributions to a public good. It is a clean test because, to our knowledge, it is the first to control for possible endowment effects. We find that the key adverse effect of inequality arises because the rich reduce their contributions when there is inequality.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4-7
Number of pages4
JournalEconomics Letters
Volume146
Early online date15 Jul 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sep 2016

Keywords

  • public goods
  • experiment
  • inequality
  • wealth
  • cooperation

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