Individual Differences In Contributions And Crowding-Out Of A Public Good

This paper reports experimental results that link other-regarding preferences, personality, and demographic characteristics to contributions to a public good and the responsiveness of contributions to tax-financed contributions. Contribution levels are higher among those with cooperative preferences, those with MyersBriggs personality types of introversion and intuition, females, and upperclassmen. However, the response to a tax-financed contribution is uniform. All player types reduce their contribution by an amount equal to the tax, a result known as complete crowd-out.