IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hou/wpaper/2013-199-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Confucianism and Preferences: Evidence from Lab Experiments in Taiwan and China

Author

Listed:
  • Elaine Liu

    () (University of Houston)

  • Juanjuan Meng

    () (Peking University Guanghua School of Management)

  • Joseph Wang

    () (National Taiwan University)

Abstract

This paper investigates how Confucianism affects individual decision making in Taiwan and in China and whether the Cultural Revolution in China, which denounced Confucian teaching, has had a long-lasting impact. We found that Chinese subjects in our experiments became less accepting of Confucian values, such that they became more risk loving, less loss averse, and more impatient after being primed with Confucianism, whereas Taiwanese subjects became more trustworthy and more patient after being primed by Confucianism. Combining the evidence from the incentivized laboratory experiments and subjective survey measures, we found evidence that Chinese subjects and Taiwanese subjects reacted differently to Confucianism.

Suggested Citation

  • Elaine Liu & Juanjuan Meng & Joseph Wang, 2013. "Confucianism and Preferences: Evidence from Lab Experiments in Taiwan and China," Working Papers 2013-199-49, Department of Economics, University of Houston.
    • Handle: RePEc:hou:wpaper:2013-199-49
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uh.edu/econpapers/RePEc/hou/wpaper/2013-199-49.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Afridi, Farzana & Li, Sherry Xin & Ren, Yufei, 2015. "Social identity and inequality: The impact of China's hukou system," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 17-29.
    2. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    3. Ming-Yih Liang, 2010. "Confucianism and the East Asian Miracle," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 206-234, July.
    4. Gine, Xavier & Goldberg, Jessica & Silverman, Dan & Yang, Dean, 2012. "Revising commitments : field evidence on the adjustment of prior choices," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6093, The World Bank.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano & Nathan Nunn, 2013. "On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 128(2), pages 469-530.
    6. James Andreoni & Charles Sprenger, 2012. "Estimating Time Preferences from Convex Budgets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3333-3356, December.
    7. La Porta, Rafael, et al, 1997. "Trust in Large Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 333-338, May.
    8. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Gerard Roland, 2017. "Culture, Institutions, and the Wealth of Nations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 402-416, July.
    9. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2006. "Does Culture Affect Economic Outcomes?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 23-48, Spring.
    10. Elaine Liu & Paul Frijters & Tao Sherry Kong, 2013. "Who is Coming to the Experiment? A Cautionary Tale from China," Working Papers 201309854, Department of Economics, University of Houston.
    11. Abigail Barr & Garance Genicot, 2008. "Risk Sharing, Commitment, and Information: An Experimental Analysis," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(6), pages 1151-1185, December.
    12. Nathan Nunn & Leonard Wantchekon, 2011. "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3221-3252, December.
    13. Daniel J. Benjamin & James J. Choi & A. Joshua Strickland, 2010. "Social Identity and Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1913-1928, September.
    14. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    15. Tomomi Tanaka & Colin F. Camerer & Quang Nguyen, 2010. "Risk and Time Preferences: Linking Experimental and Household Survey Data from Vietnam," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 557-571, March.
    16. S. Christian Wheeler & Jonah Berger, 2007. "When the Same Prime Leads to Different Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 357-368, July.
    17. repec:hrv:faseco:30726298 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Koehn, Daryl, 2001. "Confucian Trustworthiness and the Practice of Business in China," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(03), pages 415-429, July.
    19. Buchan, Nancy R. & Johnson, Eric J. & Croson, Rachel T.A., 2006. "Let's get personal: An international examination of the influence of communication, culture and social distance on other regarding preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 373-398, July.
    20. Quey-Jen Yeh & Xiaojun Xu, 2010. "The Effect of Confucian Work Ethics on Learning About Science and Technology Knowledge and Morality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 111-128, August.
    21. Po Ip, 2009. "Is Confucianism Good for Business Ethics in China?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(3), pages 463-476, September.
    22. James Andreoni & Michael A. Kuhn & Charles Sprenger, 2013. "On Measuring Time Preferences," NBER Working Papers 19392, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Quang Nguyen & Colin Camerer & Tomomi Tanaka, 2010. "Risk and Time Preferences Linking Experimental and Household Data from Vietnam," Post-Print halshs-00547090, HAL.
    24. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Bucheli, Marisa & Paz Espinosa, María & García-Muñoz, Teresa, 2013. "Moral Cleansing And Moral Licenses: Experimental Evidence," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(02), pages 199-212, July.
    25. Elaine M. Liu, 2013. "Time to Change What to Sow: Risk Preferences and Technology Adoption Decisions of Cotton Farmers in China," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1386-1403, October.
    26. Carvalho, Leandro S. & Prina, Silvia & Sydnor, Justin, 2016. "The effect of saving on risk attitudes and intertemporal choices," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 41-52.
    27. Steffen Andersen & Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2008. "Lost In State Space: Are Preferences Stable?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(3), pages 1091-1112, August.
    28. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    29. Yan Chen & Sherry Xin Li, 2009. "Group Identity and Social Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 431-457, March.
    30. Shaw, Kathryn L, 1996. "An Empirical Analysis of Risk Aversion and Income Growth," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(4), pages 626-653, October.
    31. repec:hrv:faseco:33077826 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Ornatowski, Gregory K., 1996. "Confucian ethics and economic development: A study of the adaptation of Confucian values to modern Japanese economic ideology and institutions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 571-590.
    33. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    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. James Andreoni & Charles Sprenger, 2015. "Risk Preferences Are Not Time Preferences: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 2287-2293, July.
    2. Booth, Alison L. & Fan, Elliott & Meng, Xin & Zhang, Dandan, 2016. "Gender Differences in Willingness to Compete: The Role of Culture and Institutions," IZA Discussion Papers 10364, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    3. repec:eee:chieco:v:46:y:2017:i:c:p:165-179 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:eee:jeborg:v:142:y:2017:i:c:p:32-46 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Lin, Wanchuan & Liu, Yiming & Meng, Juanjuan, 2014. "The crowding-out effect of formal insurance on informal risk sharing: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 184-211.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social norm; Confucianism; time preferences; risk aversion; trust;

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General

    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:hou:wpaper:2013-199-49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dietrich Vollrath). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/decuhus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.