1. Rational altruism? On preference estimation and dictator game experiments
- Author
-
Philip Grech and Heinrich H. Nax
- Subjects
Economics and Econometrics ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Rationality ,Strong reciprocity ,Experimental economics ,Altruism ,Charitable giving ,Dictator games ,CES utility functions ,Distributional preferences ,Social preferences ,Foundations ,Dictator game ,0502 economics and business ,Economics ,Dictator ,050206 economic theory ,050207 economics ,Preference (economics) ,Mathematical economics ,Finance ,media_common - Abstract
Experimental implementations of dictator games are found to differ in terms of their underlying strategic incentives. We explore this discovery in two separate directions. Theoretically, assuming identical other-regarding preferences, we show that the two most widely used protocols can generate strongly contrasting rational-choice predictions, from which different interpretations of dictator giving arise. Experimentally, a tailor-made experiment reveals significant differences between the two protocols but rejects full rationality as a satisfactory explanatory theory. Our findings indicate that several previously drawn conclusions regarding other-regarding preferences among humans distinguished by social class, gender, generation, nationality, etc. may be more ambiguous than hitherto believed. ISSN:0899-8256
- Published
- 2020