Giving and sorting among friends: Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 7516 July 2013 ABSTRACTGiving and Sorting among Friends: Evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field Experiment * Among residents of an informal housing area in Cairo, we examine how dictator giving varies by the social distance between subjects -friend versus stranger -and by the anonymity of the dictator. While giving to strangers is high under anonymity, we find -consistent with Leider et al. (2009) -that (i) a decrease in social distance increases giving, (ii) giving to a stranger and to a friend is positively correlated, and (iii) more altruistic dictators increase their giving less under non-anonymity than less altruistic dictators. However, friends are not alike in their altruistic preferences, suggesting that an individual's intrinsic preferences may not necessarily be shaped by his (or her) peers. Instead, reciprocal motives seem important, indicating that social relationships may be valued differently when individuals are financially dependent on them. JEL Classification:C93, D64, L14, O12

You are who your friends are?

“…Notably, we do not find evidence that friends sort by trustworthiness unless they observe their friend’s behavior. This finding is in line with the results of Binzel and Fehr (2013), who find that friends do not necessarily shape our altruistic preferences: Result 3 (Updating) . Trustors update their posterior beliefs consistent with their observation: Observing trustworthiness increases their posterior beliefs of trustworthiness in the population; observing defection decreases posterior beliefs.The right panel in Figure 8 plots the observed updating behavior in the experiment.…”

Gender Inequality and Resource Sharing: Evidence from Rural Nicaragua

“…The ones that used dictator games, as we do, did not find statistically significant gender effects (e.g. Binzel and Fehr (2013) in Cairo; Jakiela (2011) in Kenya; Gowdy et al (2003) in Nigeria; Ligon and Schechter (2012) in Paraguay; Ado and Kurosaki (2014) in Jakarta). 2 Second, another line of experimental research has developed around how sharing is influenced by social proximity (Bohnet and Frey, 1999;Charness and Gneezy, 2008).…”

Social Distance Matters in Dictator Games: Evidence from 11 Mexican Villages

“…Thus, individuals care more about the consumption levels of contacts who are closer to them than those who are farther [6,7]. In fact, previous studies have shown that altruism in dictator games is higher toward closer social contacts than distant social contacts [18,[20][21][22][23]. This would predict that individuals' giving to close social contacts is higher than to distant social contacts.…”