Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10437784 | Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization | 2005 | 9 Pages |
Abstract
Recent experimental research suggests that unpredicted behavior in the lab may result from endowment distribution and origin. We design an experiment to explore the impact of heterogeneous endowments and earned endowments on observed contributions in a linear public good game. Our results suggest that contribution levels were significantly lower when groups had heterogeneous rather than homogeneous endowments, with this finding being independent of the origin of endowment. We did not find, however, that the lack of free-riding in public goods experiments was an artifact of endowment origin. Group members contributed about the same to the public good whether their endowments were earned or not.
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Economics and Econometrics
Authors
Todd L. Cherry, Stephan Kroll, Jason F. Shogren,