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Public Goods, Social Norms and Naive Beliefs

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Author Info
Edward Cartwright ()
Amrish Patel ()

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Abstract

An individual’s contribution to a public good may be seen by others as a signal of attributes such as generosity or wealth. An individual may, therefore, choose their contribution so as to send an appropriate signal to others. In this paper we question how the inferences made by others will influence the amount contributed to the public good. Evidence suggests that individuals are naive and biased towards taking things at "face value". We contrast, therefore, contributions made to a public good if others are expected to make rational inferences versus contributions if others are expected to make naive inferences.

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File URL: ftp://ftp.ukc.ac.uk/pub/ejr/RePEc/ukc/ukcedp/0807.pdf
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Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Kent in its series Studies in Economics with number 0807.

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Date of creation: May 2008
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Handle: RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:0807

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Postal: Department of Economics, University of Kent at Canterbury, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NP
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Related research
Keywords: signalling naive beliefs public goods

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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