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

39 Pages Posted: 9 Nov 2013 Last revised: 5 Feb 2023

See all articles by Elaine Liu

Elaine Liu

University of Houston

Juanjuan Meng

Peking University - Guanghua School of Management

Joseph Tao-yi Wang

National Taiwan University - Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: November 2013

Abstract

This paper investigates how Confucianism affects individual decision making in Taiwan and in China. We found that Chinese subjects in our experiments became less accepting of Confucian values, such that they became significantly more risk loving, less loss averse, and more impatient after being primed with Confucianism, whereas Taiwanese subjects became significantly less present-based and were inclined to be more trustworthy 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

Liu, Elaine and Meng, Juanjuan and Wang, Joseph Tao-yi, Confucianism and Preferences: Evidence from Lab Experiments in Taiwan and China (November 2013). NBER Working Paper No. w19615, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2352132

Elaine Liu (Contact Author)

University of Houston ( email )

4800 Calhoun Road
Houston, TX 77204
United States

Juanjuan Meng

Peking University - Guanghua School of Management ( email )

Peking University
Beijing, Beijing 100871
China

HOME PAGE: http://www.gsm.pku.edu.cn/faculty_and_research/en/en_teacherDetail.html?crmurl=http://crm.gsm.pku.ed

Joseph Tao-yi Wang

National Taiwan University - Department of Economics ( email )

1 Roosevelt Road, Section 4
Department of Economics
Taipei, 106
Taiwan
886-2-33668411 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~josephw/

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
46
Abstract Views
470
PlumX Metrics