Nonlinear dynamics in a public good game

Luca Gori () and Mauro Sodini ()
Additional contact information
Luca Gori: University of Pisa
Mauro Sodini: University of Naples “Federico II”

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, 2025, vol. 20, issue 3, No 5, 677-699

Abstract: Abstract The present work aims to study the problem of individual voluntary anonymous contributions to the financing of public goods in a dynamic setting. To do this, the article departs from a textbook model à la Naimzada and Tramontana (2010) augmented with public goods. The article studies how bounded rationality and dependence on agents’ past decisions combine with the problem of voluntary contributions. This favours the emergence of nonlinear dynamics in individual behaviour as well as in the aggregate contribution to the financing of a public good project. The Nash equilibrium can be destabilised through a flip bifurcation when the agent reactivity increases. In addition, some Neimark–Sacker bifurcations can also occur although not around the steady-state equilibrium. A sufficiently high agent reactivity level can also lead to chaotic dynamics with possible multiple attractors. When the chaotic regime prevails, synchronisation phenomena in agent behaviour may occur but are rare. Thus, usually, even if agents are homogeneous, they behave as if they were heterogeneous by making non-synchronised decisions. The work also explicitly deepens the case of a heterogeneous economy in terms of both consumer preferences and income.

Keywords: Public goods; Nash equilibrium; Nonlinear dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C62 D43 L13 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11403-024-00423-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:jeicoo:v:20:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s11403-024-00423-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ry/journal/11403/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11403-024-00423-1

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination is currently edited by A. Namatame, Thomas Lux and Shu-Heng Chen

More articles in Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination from Springer, Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().