IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9794.html

Universalism: Global Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander W. Cappelen
  • Benjamin Enke
  • Bertil Tungodden

Abstract

This paper presents a new set of stylized facts about the global variation in universalism, leveraging hypothetical money allocation tasks deployed in representative samples of 64,000 people from 60 countries. Our data reveal large variation in universalism within and across countries, which almost entirely reflects heterogeneity in people’s moral views regarding how to treat different types of relationships. These moral views vary systematically with age, gender and religiosity. Universalism is strongly predictive of relevant outcomes such as civic engagement and left-wing economic and social policy views, in particular in the rich West. Across countries, universalism varies with the economic, political and religious organization of societies. We provide tentative evidence that experience with democracy makes people more universalist. Overall, our results show that moral universalism shapes and is shaped by politico-economic outcomes across the globe.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander W. Cappelen & Benjamin Enke & Bertil Tungodden, 2022. "Universalism: Global Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9794, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9794
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9794.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Falk, Armin & Boneva, Teodora & Chopra, Felix, 2021. "Fighting Climate Change: the Role of Norms, Preferences, and Moral Values," CEPR Discussion Papers 16343, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    2. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W. Cappelen & Bertil Tungodden, 2020. "Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans More Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking than Scandinavians?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1753-1788.
    3. Paola Giuliano, 2007. "Living Arrangements in Western Europe: Does Cultural Origin Matter?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(5), pages 927-952, September.
    4. World Bank, 2016. "World Development Indicators 2016," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 23969, October.
    5. Anke Becker & Benjamin Enke & Armin Falk, 2020. "Ancient Origins of the Global Variation in Economic Preferences," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 319-323, May.
    6. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman & Stephan Meier, 2006. "The Impact of Group Membership on Cooperation and Norm Enforcement: Evidence Using Random Assignment to Real Social Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 212-216, May.
    7. Fehr, Ernst & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "The development of egalitarianism, altruism, spite and parochialism in childhood and adolescence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 369-383.
    8. Victor Stango & Jonathan Zinman, 2019. "We are all Behavioral, More or Less: Measuring and Using Consumer-level Behavioral Sufficient Statistics," NBER Working Papers 25540, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Benjamin Enke & Ricardo Rodríguez-Padilla & Florian Zimmermann, 2023. "Moral Universalism and the Structure of Ideology," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(4), pages 1934-1962.
    10. Avner Greif, 2006. "Family Structure, Institutions, and Growth: The Origins and Implications of Western Corporations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 308-312, May.
    11. Angelo Romano & Matthias Sutter & James H. Liu & Toshio Yamagishi & Daniel Balliet, 2022. "Author Correction: National parochialism is ubiquitous across 42 nations around the world," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-1, December.
    12. Johannes C. Buggle, 2020. "Growing collectivism: irrigation, group conformity and technological divergence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 147-193, June.
    13. James Konow, 2000. "Fair Shares: Accountability and Cognitive Dissonance in Allocation Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1072-1091, September.
    14. Benjamin Enke, 2019. "Kinship, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Moral Systems," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 953-1019.
    15. Alexander W. Cappelen & Astri Drange Hole & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 818-827, June.
    16. Yan Chen & Sherry Xin Li, 2009. "Group Identity and Social Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 431-457, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kenju Kamei & Louis Putterman & Katy Tabero & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2024. "Civic Engagement as a Constraint on Corruption," Working Papers 2024-003, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    2. Zwetelina Iliewa & Elisabeth Kempf & Oliver Spalt, 2025. "Corporate Actions as Moral Issues," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2025_649v2, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany, revised Apr 2025.
    3. Lane, Tom, 2026. "Moral universalism: Incentivised evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    4. Kramer, Berber & Porter, Maria & Wassie Bizuayehu, Solomon, "undated". "Basis Risk, Social Comparison, Perceptions of Fairness and Demand for Insurance: A Field Experiment in Ethiopia," 2024 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 5-7, 2024, San Antonio, Texas 339075, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Oliver P. Hauser, 2025. "Climate Change, Intergenerational Fairness, and the Promises and Pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 88(10), pages 2689-2706, October.
    6. Esteban Jaimovich & Sarah Smith & Derrick Xu, 2026. "Do Crises Increase Parochial Behavior? Evidence from Donations During Covid," Papers 2607.28378, arXiv.org.
    7. Ralph De Haas & Victoria Baranov & Ieda Matavelli & Pauline Grosjean, 2026. "Masculinity Around the World," CESifo Working Paper Series 12906, CESifo.
    8. Yuki, Kazuhiro, 2023. "Social Identity, Redistribution, and Development," MPRA Paper 115965, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Francesco Berlingieri & Matija Kovacic & Elena Stepanova, 2025. "Trust behaviour of sexual minorities: Evidence from a large-scale trust game experiment," Working Papers 2025: 02, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    10. Zwetelina Iliewa & Elisabeth Kempf & Oliver Spalt, 2025. "Corporate Actions as Moral Issues," CESifo Working Paper Series 11854, CESifo.
    11. Balán, Pablo & Pinto, Pablo M. & Vallejo, Agustín, 2026. "Natural disasters and cooperation under diversity: Evidence from Hurricane Harvey," Working Papers 378, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, revised 2026.
    12. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Gauri, Varun & Tungodden, Bertil, 2025. "Cooperation creates moral obligations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    13. Xu, Derrick, 2026. "Only in my backyard: The effect of flood exposure on environmental behavior," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Voigt, Stefan & von Jacobi, Nadia, 2025. "Mapping Informal Institutions – a Global Dataset," ILE Working Paper Series 89, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    15. Bietenbeck, Jan & Sunde, Uwe & Thiemann, Petra, 2025. "Recession experiences during early adulthood shape prosocial attitudes later in life," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    16. Roberto Ezcurra, 2024. "Kin networks and quality of government: a regional analysis," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 73(4), pages 2117-2142, December.
    17. Apolte, Thomas, 2025. "Random walks into democracy and back: The case against causal explanations of democratization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    18. Shuyi Ding & Shuguang Jiang, 2025. "Hidden ties: How kinship shapes the global shadow economy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 205(1), pages 105-127, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexander W. Cappelen & Benjamin Enke & Bertil Tungodden, 2022. "Moral Universalism: Global Evidence," NBER Working Papers 30157, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Martin Brun & Xavier Ramos, 2025. "Attitudes to income inequality and redistribution," Working Papers 33, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research.
    3. Roberto Brunetti & Gianluca Grimalda & Maria Marino, 2025. "Trickle-Down Economics, Merit, and Redistribution: An Experiment with the Poorest and Richest US Americans," IREA Working Papers 202518, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics.
    4. Kammas, Pantelis & Sarantides, Vassilis, 2024. "Historical pathogen prevalence and the radius of trust," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    5. João V. Ferreira & Erik Schokkaert & Benoît Tarroux, 2023. "How group deliberation affects individual distributional preferences: An experimental study," Working Papers 2301, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne (GATE Lyon St-Etienne), Université de Lyon.
    6. Butler, Jeffrey V. & Fehr, Dietmar, 2024. "The causal effect of cultural identity on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 134-147.
    7. Cappelen,Alexander & Gauri,Varun & Tungodden,Bertil, 2018. "Cooperation creates special moral obligations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8531, The World Bank.
    8. Alexander W Cappelen & Karl Ove Moene & Siv-Elisabeth Skjelbred & Bertil Tungodden, 2023. "The Merit Primacy Effect," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(651), pages 951-970.
      • Alexander Cappelen & Karl Ove Moene & Siv-Elisabeth Skjelbred & Bertil Tungodden, 2017. "The Merit Primacy Effect," Working Papers 2017-047, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    9. Lu Dong & Lingbo Huang, 2018. "Favoritism and Fairness in Teams," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-15, September.
    10. Schütt, Christoph A. & Pipke, David & Detlefsen, Lena & Grimalda, Gianluca, 2023. "Does ethnic heterogeneity decrease workers’ effort in the presence of income redistribution? An experimental analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    11. Benjamin Enke & Ricardo Rodríguez-Padilla & Florian Zimmermann, 2022. "Moral Universalism: Measurement and Economic Relevance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(5), pages 3590-3603, May.
    12. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Gauri, Varun & Tungodden, Bertil, 2025. "Cooperation creates moral obligations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    13. Alexander W. Cappelen & Stefan Meissner & Bertil Tungodden, 2025. "Cancel the Deal? An Experimental Study on the Exploitation of Irrational Consumers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(5), pages 3983-3995, May.
    14. Gantner, Anita & Horn, Kristian & Kerschbamer, Rudolf, 2016. "Fair and efficient division through unanimity bargaining when claims are subjective," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 56-73.
    15. Falch, Ranveig, 2021. "How Do People Trade Off Resources Between Quick and Slow Learners?," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 5/2021, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    16. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Cappelen, Cornelius & Tungodden, Bertil, 2018. "Second-best fairness under Limited information: The trade-off between false positives and false negatives," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 18/2018, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    17. O. Chanel & S. Luchini & M. Teschl & A. Trannoy, 2025. "Preferences for redistributive justice: A participatory-democracy experiment," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 23(3), pages 717-747, September.
    18. John Bone & Paolo Crosetto & John Hey & Carmen Pasca, 2021. "The Acceptability of Accountability," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 476-501, December.
    19. Israel Eruchimovitch & Moti Michaeli & Assaf Sarid, 2024. "On the coevolution of individualism and institutions," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 391-432, September.
    20. Gagnon, Nickolas, 2024. "On your own side of the fence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9794. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.