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Exp Econ (2014) 17:488500
DOI 10.1007/s10683-013-9379-3
O R I G I NA L PA P E R
Received: 25 April 2013 / Accepted: 30 September 2013 / Published online: 26 October 2013 Economic Science Association 2013
Abstract We show that, if giving is equivalent to not taking, impure altruism could account for Lists (in Journal of Political Economy 115(3):482493, 2007) nding that the payoff to recipients in a dictator game decreases when the dictator has the option to take. We examine behavior in dictator games with different taking options but equivalent nal payoff possibilities. We nd that recipients tend to earn more as the amount the dictator must take to achieve a given nal payoff increases, a result consistent with the hypothesis that the cold prickle of taking is stronger than the warm glow of giving. We conclude that not taking is not equivalent to giving and agree with List (in Journal of Political Economy 115(3):482493, 2007) that the current social preference models fail to rationalize the observed data.
Keywords Dictator game Impure altruism Taking
JEL Classication C91 D01 D64 H30 H41
1 Introduction
Is giving equivalent to not taking? Consider a dictator with a $10 endowment who can take some, all or none from the recipients $5 endowment. If the dictator takes $3, we cannot say that the dictator is selsh. A selsh dictator would maximize her own nal payoff by taking $5 and leaving the recipient with nothing. By not taking
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10683-013-9379-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
O. Korenok E.L. Millner (B) L. Razzolini
Department of Economics, Virginia Commonwealth University, 301 West Main Street, Richmond, VA 23284-4000, USAe-mail: [email protected]
Taking, giving, and impure altruism in dictator games
Oleg Korenok Edward L. Millner
Laura Razzolini
Taking, giving, and impure altruism in dictator games 489
$2 the dictator has reduced her payoff from $15 to $13 and increased the recipients payoff from $0 to $2. But can we say that by not taking $2 the dictator feels the same as if she gave $2. In other words, is not taking the same as giving?
To answer this question we examine behavior in a parallel game in which the dictator can achieve the...