Intertemporal Universalism

Many economic and policy decisions require weighting the welfare of individuals living at different points in time. To examine how people approach such intertemporal trade-offs, we design an experiment in which subjects with no personal monetary stake allocate money between Strangers who differ in their participation and payment dates. This design allows us to examine intertemporal universalism, the extent to which individuals receive equal consideration regardless of their temporal location. Our results show that subjects are more generous toward Strangers who participate and/or are paid today than toward those whose participation and/or payment is delayed by 6, 12, or 24 months. In contrast, when both Strangers participate and/or are paid at different dates that all fall in the future, allocation differences largely vanish. To shed light on the mechanisms behind these results, we complement the main experiment with measures of perceived closeness to Strangers and open-ended justifications for favoritism. These complementary data suggest that temporal distance maps onto social distance: subjects feel closer to Strangers who are anchored in the present and justify favoring them by invoking their immediate needs or greater commitment.