the role of heterogeneity and the dynamics of voluntary contributions to public goods: an experimental and agent-based simulation analysis

This paper examines the role of heterogeneous agents in the study of voluntary contributions to public goods. a human-subject experiment was conducted to classify agent types and determine their effects on contribution levels. data from the experiment was used to build and calibrate an agent-based simulation model. the simulations display how different compositions of agent preference types affect the contribution levels. findings indicate that the heterogeneity of cooperative preferences is an important determinant of a population’s contribution pattern.