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Social Preferences and Moral Biases

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Author Info
Croson, Rachel
Konow, James

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Abstract

An emerging consensus in economics is that three motives are at work in strategic decisions: distributive preferences, reciprocal preferences and self-interest. An important obstacle, however, has been moral biases: distortions created by self-interest can obscure our measures of social preferences. This paper describes a simple experiment to address this. We compare the decisions of implicated “stakeholders” with those of impartial “spectators.” We find that stakeholders are less inclined to respond to the generosity of others than are spectators. We also clarify a result in previous research (e.g., Offerman 2002) that stakeholders punish unkindness more than they reward kindness. We find that this asymmetry in reciprocity has two sources: an asymmetry in the underlying preference that even impartial spectators display and a moral bias; stakeholders punish more and reward less than spectators. In sum, we find that all three motives have important and significant effects on final allocations.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 2729.

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Date of creation: Mar 2009
Date of revision: Jan 2008
Publication status: Published in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 3.69(2009): pp. 201-212
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:2729

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Related research
Keywords: Reciprocity; fairness; justice; moral bias;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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References listed on IDEAS
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Konow, James, 2008. "The Moral High Ground: An Experimental Study of Spectator Impartiality," MPRA Paper 18558, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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