Other-Regarding Preferences and Giving Decision in Risky Environments: Experimental Evidence
GATE WP 1815 – September 2018
37 Pages Posted: 5 Oct 2018
Date Written: September 12, 2018
Abstract
This paper investigates if and how other-regarding preferences governing giving decisions in dictator games are affected in risky environments in which the payoff of the recipient is random. We demonstrate that, whenever the risk is actuarially neutral, the donation of dictators with a purely ex post view of fairness should, in general, be affected by the riskyness of the recipient’s payoff, while dictators with a purely ex ante view should not be. Our experimental data give weak empirical support to the purely ex post view of fairness.
Keywords: Laboratory Experiments Dictator Games, Background Risk, Other-Regarding Preferences, Inequality Aversion, Impure Altruism, Ex Ante and Ex Post Views of Fairness
JEL Classification: C91, D64, D81
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation