Endogenous timing and income inequality in the voluntary provision of public goods: Theory and experiment
通过理论和实验研究收入不平等如何影响捐赠者内生选择贡献时机（同时或序贯）以及公共物品供给，发现极端不平等时捐赠者对时机无偏好，而收入更平等时更可能同时贡献。
Abstract This study theoretically and experimentally investigates the effects of income inequality on donors' decisions regarding timing choices and contributions to public goods when contribution timing is endogenously chosen by contributors. To this end, we use the conventional voluntary provision models of Warr (1983) and Bergstrom, Blume and Varian (1986), with Cobb–Douglas preferences augmented with a two‐stage game of Hamilton and Slutsky (1990). The following results were obtained and experimentally confirmed. First, when the distribution of income is extremely unequal, donors are indifferent between the simultaneous and sequential moves in the contribution game. Second, as income inequality is decreased, the simultaneous‐move contribution game is likely to emerge because every donor prefers to act as a leader. Nevertheless, a higher‐income donor may also prefer to act as a follower without specific social preferences and uncertainty regarding the quality of public goods. Third, most theoretical predictions regarding timing decisions are supported in our laboratory experiment, provided that the participants had enough time to learn the consequences of their timing choices.