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Social preferences are stable over long periods of time

Author

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  • Carlsson, Fredrik

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Johansson-Stenman, Olof

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Pham, Khanh Nam

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

We measure people’s prosocial behavior, in terms of voluntary money and labor time contributions to an archetypical public good, a bridge, and in terms of voluntary money contributions in a public good game, using the same non-student sample in rural Vietnam at four different points in time from 2005 to 2011. Two of the experiments are natural experiment, one is a field experiment and one is a public good experiment. Since the experiments were conducted far apart in time, the potentially confounding effects of moral licensing and moral cleansing are presumably small, if existing at all. Despite large contextual variations, we find a strong positive and statistically significant correlation between voluntary contributions in these experiments, whether correcting for other covariates or not. This suggests that pro-social preferences are fairly stable over long periods of time and contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Pham, Khanh Nam, 2012. "Social preferences are stable over long periods of time," Working Papers in Economics 531, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0531
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/29170
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    natural field experiment; preference stability; social preferences; moral licensing; moral cleansing.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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