American Economic Review Vol. 97 No. 5 2007

Individual Preferences for Giving

Raymond Fisman¹; Shachar Kariv²; Daniel Markovits³

¹ Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, Uris 823, New York, NY 10027. · ² Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, 549 Evans Hall, 3880, Berkeley, CA 94720. · ³ Yale Law School, P.O. Box 208215, New Haven, CT 06520.

Abstract

We utilize graphical representations of Dictator Games which generate rich individual-level data. Our baseline experiment employs budget sets over feasible payoff-pairs. We test these data for consistency with utility maximization, and we recover the underlying preferences for giving (trade-offs between own payoffs and the payoffs of others). Two further experiments augment the analysis. An extensive elaboration employs three-person budget sets to distinguish preferences for giving from social preferences (trade-offs between the payoffs of others). And an intensive elaboration employs step-shaped sets to distinguish between behaviors that are compatible with well-behaved preferences and those compatible only with not well-behaved cases.

DOI

10.1257/aer.97.5.1858

Volume

97

Issue

5

Pages

1858-1876

Language

en

Sources

openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

Cite

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