Taking the Well-being of Future Generations Seriously : Do People Contribute More to Intra-temporal or Inter-temporal Public Goods?

Gilles G. Grolleau (1) , Angela Sutan (2) , Radu Vranceanu (3)

1 Unité MIAJ - INRA - Mathématiques et Informatique Appliquées
2 BSB - Burgundy School of Business (BSB) - Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Dijon Bourgogne (ESC)
3 ESSEC Business School

We investigate the dynamics of cooperation in public good games when contributions to the public good are immediately redistributed across contributors (intra-temporal transfers) and when contributions to the public good by the current group are transferred over time to a future group (inter-temporal transfers). We show that people are more cooperative in inter-temporal contexts than in intra-temporal contexts. We also find that subjects invest more on average in public goods when they know in advance their inheritance from the past.

Nous étudions un jeu du bien public avec transferts inter temporels. Les résultats indiquent une forme d'altruisme intergénérationnel.

Keywords: Public goods; Voluntary contribution mechanism; Inter-temporal vs intra-temporal transfers; Sustainable development

Keywords: Jeu du bien public; transferts intergénérationnels

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Economics and Finance

Gilles G. Grolleau, Angela Sutan, Radu Vranceanu. Taking the Well-being of Future Generations Seriously : Do People Contribute More to Intra-temporal or Inter-temporal Public Goods?. 2013. ⟨hal-00866970⟩