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The impact of endowment heterogeneity and origin on contributions in best-shot public good games

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Stephan Kroll ,
Todd L. Cherry  and
Jason F. Shogren
Stephan Kroll*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, California State University, Sacramento, 6000 J-Street, Sacramento, CA 95819-6082; Center for Experimental Economics, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstr. 15, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Todd L. Cherry
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0550
Jason F. Shogren
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071-3985
*
e-mail: skroll@csus.edu
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Abstract

Economists and psychologists have long argued the origin of wealth influences individual behavior. In a previous study (Cherry et al., 2005), we found the origin of endowment did not significantly affect behavior in linear public good games with summation contribution technology. In such games, however, both Nash behavior (everybody gives nothing) and social optimal behavior (everybody gives the entire endowment) call for symmetric levels of contributions. Results from this new study indicate that the origin of wealth might matter in more asymmetric situations, such as in a best-shot public good game with heterogeneous groups.

Keywords

Endowment heterogeneityEndowment originBest-shot public good experiment

JEL classification

H41: Public Goods C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior C72: Noncooperative Games
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 411 - 428
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-006-9144-y.

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