Asymmetric Agents and Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods
Subhra Bhattacharya  1@  
1 : Shiv Nadar University  (SNU)  -  Website
NH 91, Tehsil Dadri, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh 201314 -  India

We analyse dynamic voluntary contributions to public goods, both of continuous and discrete nature, by individuals who value the provision differently. Individual contributions by asymmetric agents in Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE) are shown to be strategic complements across time, irrespective of the nature of the public good. In case of a continuous public good with a constant marginal benefit, the project might need a critical external contribution to get started. Once the project is started, individuals increase their contribution as the project progresses to achieve a steady state level of provision. On the other hand, individual contributions towards a discrete public good are strategic complements across time and positively related to agents valuation. An individual with higher valuation contributes a larger amount in each period in an asymmetric completion MPE.


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