Income and wealth heterogeneity in the voluntary provision of linear public goods

This paper examines the effect of income and wealth heterogeneity in the voluntary provision of a linear public good. We use models of inequality aversion and altruism to predict behavior in our setting. Our results are not consistent with these models, however; our experimental results suggest that less wealthy subjects give the same absolute amount (and more as a percentage of their income) as the more wealthy. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.