Norms in an asymmetric Public Good experiment

•One-shot Public Good experiment with asymmetric endowments.•Elicitation of normative beliefs (“What is 'right'?”, “What do others think is 'right'?”) and descriptive beliefs (“What will others do?”)•A social norm does not emerge.•Contributions are influenced by what is 'right' and the behavioral rule 'Do what others do who are like me'.•Rich players consider absolute contribution fairness as 'right' but practice relative fairness, while the exact opposite is true for poor players.

In a Public Good experiment we find that rich and poor players have different fairness considerations and that contributions are influenced but not determined by what they think is 'right' and by 'what others do' who are like them.