IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/wpaper/3247.html

Discrimination in the Provision of Social Services to the Poor: A Field Experimental Study

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Camilo Cardenas
  • Natalia Candelo
  • Alejandro Gaviria
  • Sandra Polania
  • Rajiv Sethi

Abstract

This paper uses an experimental field approach to investigate the pro-social preferences and behavior of social services providers and the behavior of potential beneficiaries in Bogota, Colombia. Field experiments were conducted using games including a newly designed Distributive Dictator Game in order to examine traits and mechanisms guiding pro-sociality. Replicating the patterns of previous studies, individuals showed a preference for fair outcomes, positive levels of trust and reciprocity, and willingness to punish unfair outcomes. The results provide evidence that the poor trigger more pro-social behavior from all citizens, including public servants, but the latter display strategic generosity. Additional observations include a bias in favor of women and households with more dependents, but discriminatory behavior against stigmatized groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Camilo Cardenas & Natalia Candelo & Alejandro Gaviria & Sandra Polania & Rajiv Sethi, 2008. "Discrimination in the Provision of Social Services to the Poor: A Field Experimental Study," Research Department Publications 3247, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:3247
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=R-544&pub_file_name=pubR-544.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Third Party Punishment and Social Norms," IEW - Working Papers 106, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    2. repec:bla:ausecr:v:38:y:2005:i:3:p:285-297 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2002. "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6868), pages 137-140, January.
    4. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 2000. "Walrasian Economics in Retrospect," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1411-1439.
    5. Branas-Garza, Pablo, 2006. "Poverty in dictator games: Awakening solidarity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 306-320, July.
    6. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    7. Colin F. Camerer & Ernst Fehr, "undated". "Measuring Social Norms and Preferences using Experimental Games: A Guide for Social Scientists," IEW - Working Papers 097, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    9. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Jeffrey Carpenter, 2008. "Behavioural Development Economics: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 311-338.
    10. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard, 1986. "Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 728-741, September.
    11. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    12. Shubham Chaudhuri & Rajiv Sethi, 2003. "Statistical Discrimination with Neighborhood Effects: Can Integration Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?," Game Theory and Information 0312001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Forsythe Robert & Horowitz Joel L. & Savin N. E. & Sefton Martin, 1994. "Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-369, May.
    14. Becker, Gary S., 1971. "The Economics of Discrimination," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226041162.
    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. Abigail Barr & Andrew Zeitlin, 2011. "Conflict of interest as a barrier to local accountability," CSAE Working Paper Series 2011-13, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    2. Chong, Alberto E. & Ñopo, Hugo R., 2007. "Discrimination in Latin America: An Elephant in the Room?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1960, Inter-American Development Bank.
    3. Gustavo Adolfo García Cruz. & Lu�s Miguel Tovar Cuevas, 2006. "La Percepción del Estado de Salud: Una Mirada a las Regiones desde la Encuesta de Calidad de Vida 2003," Documentos de Trabajo 3972, Universidad del Valle, CIDSE.
    4. Ulrike Müller, 2012. "Pro-poor Service Delivery and Social Identity," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-055, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Mar√≠a Jos√© Torres Herrera, 2020. "¬øInteractuar o no interactuar? Un estudio experimental sobre expresiones de g√©nero," Documentos CEDE 18365, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    6. Cárdenas Juan Camilo & Casas-Casas Andrés & Méndez Nathalie Méndez, 2014. "The Hidden Face of Justice: Fairness, Discrimination and Distribution in Transitional Justice Processes," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 33-60, January.
    7. Juan Camilo Cárdenas, 2009. "Experiments in Environment and Development," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 157-182, September.
    8. Alberto Chong & Hugo Ñopo, 2007. "Discriminación en América Latina: Eso que (casi) todos vemos? (Discrimination in Latin America: An Elephant in the Room?)," Research Department Publications 4537, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    9. Müller, Ulrike, 2012. "Pro-poor Service Delivery and Social Identity," WIDER Working Paper Series 055, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. Cárdenas Juan Camilo & Casas-Casas Andrés & Méndez Nathalie Méndez, 2014. "The Hidden Face of Justice: Fairness, Discrimination and Distribution in Transitional Justice Processes," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 33-60, January.
    2. Bogliacino, Francesco & Codagnone, Cristiano, 2021. "Microfoundations, behaviour, and evolution: Evidence from experiments," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 372-385.
    3. Werner, Katharina & Graf Lambsdorff, Johann, 2016. "Emotional numbing and lessons learned after a violent conflict - Experimental evidence from Ambon, Indonesia," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-74-16, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    4. Bergh, Andreas, 2008. "A critical note on the theory of inequity aversion," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1789-1796, October.
    5. Croson, Rachel & Konow, James, 2007. "Double Standards: Social Preferences and Moral Biases," MPRA Paper 2729, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Eckel, Catherine & Gintis, Herbert, 2010. "Blaming the messenger: Notes on the current state of experimental economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 109-119, January.
    7. Croson, Rachel & Konow, James, 2009. "Social preferences and moral biases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 201-212, March.
    8. Matteo M. Galizzi & Daniel Navarro-Martinez, 2019. "On the External Validity of Social Preference Games: A Systematic Lab-Field Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 976-1002, March.
    9. Wang, Cynthia S. & Sivanathan, Niro & Narayanan, Jayanth & Ganegoda, Deshani B. & Bauer, Monika & Bodenhausen, Galen V. & Murnighan, Keith, 2011. "Retribution and emotional regulation: The effects of time delay in angry economic interactions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 46-54, September.
    10. Andreoni, James & Brown, Paul M. & Vesterlund, Lise, 2002. "What Makes an Allocation Fair? Some Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-24, July.
    11. Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2005. "The Economics of Fairness, Reciprocity and Altruism – Experimental Evidence and New Theories," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 66, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    12. Charness, Gary & Cobo-Reyes, Ramón & Jiménez, Natalia, 2008. "An investment game with third-party intervention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 18-28, October.
    13. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.
    14. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    15. Damon Tomlin, 2015. "Rational Constraints and the Evolution of Fairness in the Ultimatum Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, July.
    16. Bašić, Zvonimir & Verrina, Eugenio, 2024. "Personal norms — and not only social norms — shape economic behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    17. Luo, Jun & Wang, Xinxin, 2020. "Hukou identity and trust—Evidence from a framed field experiment in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    18. Simon Gaechter, 2014. "Human Pro-Social Motivation and the Maintenance of Social Order," CESifo Working Paper Series 4729, CESifo.
    19. Andreas Bergh & Philipp C Wichardt, 2022. "Mine or ours? Unintended framing effects in dictator games," Rationality and Society, , vol. 34(1), pages 78-95, February.
    20. Greiff Matthias & Egbert Henrik, 2017. "The Pay-What-You-Want game: What can be learned from the experimental evidence on Dictator and Trust Games?," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 124-139, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

    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:idb:wpaper:3247. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.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.