2013. Enforcement of contribution norms in public good games with heterogeneous populations

Economic and social interaction takes place between individuals with heterogeneous charac-teristics. We experimentally investigate the emergence and informal enforcement of contribu-tion norms to a public good in groups that are heterogeneous with regard to endowments and marginal benefits from the public good. Without punishment, all groups converge towards free-riding. With punishment, contributions strongly differ across groups and individuals with different induced characteristics. We show that these differences are the result of differ-ent contribution norms enforced through punishment. Moreover, individuals with different characteristics tacitly agree on the norm to be enforced. The resulting contribution norms are related to the fairness notion of equity regarding contributions but not regarding earnings