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Altruism and information

Author

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  • Brañas-Garza, Pablo
  • Bucheli, Marisa
  • Espinosa, Maria Paz

Abstract

Experimental literature has accumulated evidence on the association of personal characteristics to a higher or lower level of prosocial behavior. There is also evidence that donations are affected by the mere provision of information about the recipients, whatever its nature or content. In this paper, we present a unified experimental framework to analyze the impact of social class, political orientation and gender on the level of giving; our experimental design allows us to reveal the effect of providing information by itself, with respect to the baseline treatment of no information, and separately from the effect of the informational content. These results could be relevant to any design intended to measure the impact on altruism of different manipulations of the Dictator Game.

Suggested Citation

  • Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Bucheli, Marisa & Espinosa, Maria Paz, 2018. "Altruism and information," MPRA Paper 87089, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:87089
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    2. Chapkovski, Philipp, 2022. "Information avoidance in a polarized society," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    3. De Geest, Lawrence R. & Kidwai, Abdul H. & Portillo, Javier E., 2022. "Ours, not yours: Property rights, poaching and deterrence in common-pool resources," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Umer, Hamza, 2023. "Effectiveness of random payment in Experiments: A meta-Analysis of dictator games," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    5. Traub, Stefan & Schwaninger, Manuel & Paetzel, Fabian & Neuhofer, Sabine, 2023. "Evidence on need-sensitive giving behavior: An experimental approach to the acknowledgment of needs," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    6. Chapkovski, Philipp & Zakharov, Alexei, 2023. "Does voluntary disclosure of polarizing information make polarization deeper? An online experiment on Russo-Ukrainian War," MPRA Paper 116305, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Baltrusch, Maximilian & Wichardt, Philipp C., 2024. "Gender effects in dictator game giving under voluntary choice of the recipient’s gender: Women favour female recipients," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic experiments; information; wealth; gender; ideology; inequity aversion; giving.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General

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