The taste for Generativity

Drawing from the psychological literature, we define generativity as the preference for the empowering impact of an agent's actions on others' prosociality. We experimentally test its role in determining subjects' choices and welfare by using several variants of the dictator game that either increase the number of direct recipients, implement a generative scenario in which the dictator gives money to a direct intermediate recipient who, in turn, has the opportunity to pass a fraction of this amount to an indirect final beneficiary, or provide the dictator with the option to choose between participating in a standard one-recipient dictator game and entering the generative scenario. Consistent with the concept of generativity, we find that the amount given by the dictator increases with the number of recipients, regardless of whether they benefit directly or indirectly (through the intervention of an intermediate recipient) from the transfer. We also show that the dictator strongly prefers to self-select into the generative scenario, and in this setting, gives an amount that positively depends on how much one expects the intermediate recipient to pass to the indirect final beneficiary. However, we also document a tendency for the intermediate recipient to deliberately embezzle part of the dictator's giving, passing on less than expected by the initial donor, which generates negative effects on the welfare of the indirect final beneficiary.