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Do What (You Think) the Rich Will Do: Inequality and Belief Heterogeneity in Public Good Provision

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  • Andrea F. M. Martinangeli

Abstract

Beliefs about others’ cooperativeness are among the strongest determinants of cooperative behaviours. Beliefs about different others, however, are not necessarily uniform, nor necessarily related to past behaviours: different expectations about different others might solely originate from differences in observed individual characteristics. Finally, not all such beliefs need drive conditional behaviour alike. In an experimental public good game with heterogeneous endowments, I ï¬ nd that rich subjects are expected to cooperate more by both rich and poor individuals, and that behaviours of both the rich and poor signiï¬ cantly correlate only with beliefs about the rich. I further ï¬ nd that an intervention aimed at downplaying the salience of heterogeneity has no impact on neither beliefs nor cooperation. I conclude with implications for information dissemination about uncooperative behaviour in the mass media and avenues for further research.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea F. M. Martinangeli, 2017. "Do What (You Think) the Rich Will Do: Inequality and Belief Heterogeneity in Public Good Provision," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2017-06_4, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpi:wpaper:tax-mpg-rps-2017-06_4
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    Cited by:

    1. Catola, Marco & D’Alessandro, Simone & Guarnieri, Pietro & Pizziol, Veronica, 2023. "Multilevel public goods game: Levelling up, substitution and crowding-in effects," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    2. Folli, Dominik & Wolff, Irenaeus, 2022. "Biases in belief reports," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Andrea F.M. Martinangeli & Peter Martinsson, 2019. "We, the Rich: Inequality, Identity and Cooperation in Complex Societies," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2019-19, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    4. Abhijit Ramalingam & Brock V. Stoddard, 2021. "Does reducing inequality increase cooperation?​," GRU Working Paper Series GRU_2021_022, City University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics and Finance, Global Research Unit.
    5. Martinangeli, Andrea F.M. & Windsteiger, Lisa, 2024. "Inequality shapes the propagation of unethical behaviours: Cheating responses to tax evasion along the income distribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 135-181.
    6. Ramalingam, Abhijit & Stoddard, Brock V., 2024. "Does reducing inequality increase cooperation?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 170-183.
    7. Ziano, Ignazio & Lembregts, Christophe & Pandelaere, Mario, 2022. "People weigh salaries more than ratios in judgments of income inequality, fairness, and demands for redistribution," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    8. Ramalingam, Abhijit & Stoddard, Brock V., 2024. "Inequality reduction and cooperation: Injection of additional resources," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    belief formation; cooperation; experiment; group identity; inequality; public goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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