Inequality, Group Cohesion, and Public Good Provision: An Experimental Analysis

Jeffrey Milyo, Jennifer Mellor () and Lisa Anderson

No 418, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Missouri

Abstract: Recent studies argue that inequality reduces group cohesiveness and dampens support for expenditures on public goods and social programs. In light of competing theoretical explanations and mixed empirical evidence of the effect of inequality on public goods provision, we conduct a test using a public goods experiment. Our design introduces inequality by manipulating the levels and distributions of fixed payments given to subjects for participating in the experiment. When made salient through public information about each individuals standing within the group, inequality in the distribution of fixed payments reduces contributions to the public good for all group members.

Keywords: Public Good; Inequality; Free Rider (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 H41 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pgs.
Date: 2004-12-27, Revised 2004-12-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YygPip5FFr-U_uuSi ... YCW/view?usp=sharing (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Inequality, Group Cohesion, and Public Good Provision: An Experimental Analysis (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:umc:wpaper:0418

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Missouri Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chao Gu ().