Other-Regarding Preferences and Other-Regarding Cheating – Experimental Evidence from China, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands

37 Pages Posted: 2 Feb 2015 Last revised: 6 Jun 2015

See all articles by Ting Jiang

Ting Jiang

Philosophy, Politics and Economics; University of Pennsylvania - School of Arts & Sciences

Date Written: December 1, 2014

Abstract

This study examines whether other-regarding preferences (ORPs) can predict cheating for different beneficiaries: cheating for-self, and other-regarding cheating for an in-group or an out-group member. The results show that, on the one hand, more prosocial subjects cheat less for self compared to more proself subjects. On the other hand, they cheat more for others. Moreover, the extent of cheating varies across the countries sampled in the study. The four countries were chosen based on the dimensions of individualism and the perceived level of corruption. While China and Japan are more collectivistic than Italy and the Netherlands (Hofstede et al., 2010), China and Italy are ranked as more corrupt than Japan and the Netherlands according to the Corruption Perception Index (Transparency International, 2010). The extent of cheating is found to vary by the dimension of the perceived level of corruption, and not by the cultural dimension of individualism. Compared to subjects from Japan and the Netherlands, the two countries that are ranked as less corrupt, subjects from China and Italy not only cheat more for self, but also cheat more for others.

Keywords: other-regarding preferences; prosociality; rule-breaking; embezzlement; self-regarding cheating; other-regarding cheating; cross-cultural experiments

JEL Classification: C91, D63, H26, K42

Suggested Citation

Jiang, Ting, Other-Regarding Preferences and Other-Regarding Cheating – Experimental Evidence from China, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands (December 1, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2558814 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2558814

Ting Jiang (Contact Author)

Philosophy, Politics and Economics ( email )

Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States

University of Pennsylvania - School of Arts & Sciences ( email )

Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States

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