Experimental Perspectives on Intergenerational Altruism: A Study on Public Good Dilemmas

Humans evolved over millennia into agents that invest heavily, both directly and indirectly, in their children. Part of the investment into children is represented by contributions to long-run public goods, including the educational system, the health-care system, major infrastructures and environmental protection. Moreover, the production of some of these public goods has wide-ranging externalities to local or global communities (think of vaccination programs, for example). This Doctoral Thesis is a collection of three essays on the topic of long-run, across-the-border public goods, from the vantage point of Experimental and Behavioral Economics. The first Chapter reviews the literature up to date, re-organizing previous works on Public Good games for the benefit of explaining why intergenerational and international public goods are different from standard ones. The second and third Chapters provide empirical evidence on matters such as heterogeneity linked to seniority and dynastic membership in the provision of public goods.