Effects of heterogeneous wealth distribution on public cooperation with collective risk—Wang 2010

The Pareto principle or "80-20 rule" describes real-world wealth distribution. How does initial wealth distribution affect public cooperation when rich and poor individuals engage in a collective-risk enterprise not to profit but to avoid a loss? We address this issue by studying threshold public goods games. We compare fair sharers versus defectors and altruists versus defectors in two scenarios. For both scenarios, we study the dynamics of the rich versus poor population. We also show steady population compositions and their stability conditions. Richer people are more likely to cooperate in a population with uneven wealth. Low-wealth players can only cooperate if all richer players do. Rich people drive public cooperation. When the wealth gap between the rich and the poor is large, a few rich people can boost social cooperation, according to the Pareto principle. Our work may shed light on the emergence of cooperative behavior in heterogeneous wealth distributions.

Wang, J., Fu, F., & Wang, L. (2010). Effects of heterogeneous wealth distribution on public cooperation with collective risk. Physical Review E, 82(1). https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.82.016102