In recent years, scholars have turned to alternative representations of utility to capture motivational heterogeneity across individuals. In the research reported here, we examine two models of heterogeneous utility--linear-altruism and inequity-aversion--in the context of two-person, social dilemma games. Empirical tests are conducted drawing on data from experiments and surveys. We find that the model of inequity-aversion accounts for a substantial proportion of the preference types and behavior that are not explained by the standard model of self-interested preferences. In contrast, the altruism model does not provide a significant increase in explanatory power over the inequity-aversion model. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Article provided by Springer in its journal Public Choice.
Volume (Year): 117 (2003) Issue (Month): 3-4 (December) Pages: 295-314 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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