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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Fei Song (Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University); C. Bram Cadsby (Department of Economics, University of Guelph); Yunyun Bi (Taiping Asset Management, Shanghai, China) |
| Abstract: | We examine the influence of social distance on levels of trust and reciprocity in China. Social distance, reflected in the indigenous concept of guanxi, is of central importance to Chinese culture. In Study 1, some participants participated in two financially salient trust games to measure behavior, one with an anonymous classmate and the other with an anonymous, demographically identical nonclassmate. Other participants, drawn from the same population, completed hypothetical surveys to gauge both hypothetical behavior and expectations of others. Social distance effects on actual and hypothetical behavior were statistically consistent. The results together corroborated the hypothesized negative relationship between trust and social distance. However, reciprocity was not responsive to social distance. Study 2 found that affect-based trust, but not cognition-based trust, played a mediating role in the relationship between social distance and interpersonal trust in a hypothetical scenario. We conclude that close guanxi ties in China engender affect-based trust, which is extended to shouren classmates. This is true despite the fact that no more cognition-based trust is placed nor reciprocity received or expected from classmates compared to demographically identical shengren nonclassmates. |
| Keywords: | Experiment; Affect-based Trust; China; Guano; Reciprocity; Trust; Social Distance |
| JEL: | C91 D03 D69 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gue:guelph:2012-04.&r=evo |
| By: | Kocher, Martin G.; Martinsson, Peter; Myrseth, Kristian Ove R.; Wollbrant, Conny |
| Abstract: | We develop a model relating self-control, risk preferences and conflict identification to cooperation patterns in social dilemmas. We subject our model to data from an experimental public goods game and a risk experiment, and we measure conflict identification and self-control. As predicted, we find a robust association between self-control and higher levels of cooperation, and the association is weaker for more risk-averse individuals. Free riders differ from other contributor types only in their tendency not to have identified a self-control conflict in the first place. Our model accounts for the data at least as well as do other models. |
| Keywords: | self-control; cooperation; public good; risk; experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D03 H40 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:muenec:12706&r=evo |
| By: | Ligon, Ethan (University of California, Berkeley. Dept of agricultural and resource economics); Schechter, Laura (University of Wisconsin, Madison) |
| Abstract: | What motivates people in rural villages to share? We first elicit a baseline level of sharing using a standard, anonymous dictator game. Then using variants of the dictator game that allow for either revealing the dictator's identity or allowing the dictator to choose the recipient, we attribute variationin sharing to three different motives. The first of these, directed altruism, is related to preferences, while the remaining two are incentive-related(sanctions and reciprocity). We observe high average levels of sharing in ourbaseline treatment, while variation across individuals depends importantlyon the incentive-related motives. Finally, variation in measured reciprocity within the experiment predicts observed 'real-world' gift-giving, while other motives measured in the experiment do not predict behavior outside the experiment. |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:are:cudare:1120&r=evo |
| By: | Benabou, Roland (Princeton University); Tirole, Jean (IDEI) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes how private decisions and public policies are shaped by personal and societal preferences ("values"), material or other explicit incentives ("laws") and social sanctions or rewards ("norms"). It first examines how honor, stigma and social norms arise from individuals' behaviors and inferences, and how they interact with material incentives. It then characterizes optimal incentive-setting in the presence of norms, deriving in particular appropriately modified versions of Pigou and Ramsey taxation. Incorporating agents' imperfect knowledge of the distribution of preferences opens up to analysis several new questions. The first is social psychologists' practice of "norms-based interventions", namely campaigns and messages that seek to alter people's perceptions of what constitutes "normal" behavior or values among their peers. The model makes clear how such interventions operate, but also how their effectiveness is limited by a credibility problem, particularly when the descriptive and prescriptive norms conflict. The next main question is the expressive role of law. The choices of legislators and other principals naturally reflect their knowledge of societal preferences, and these same "community standards" are also what shapes social judgements and moral sentiments. Setting law thus means both imposing material incentives and sending a message about society's values, and hence about the norms that different behaviors are likely to encounter. The analysis, combining an informed principal with individually signaling agents, makes precise the notion of expressive law, determining in particular when a weakening or a strengthening of incentives is called for. Pushing further this logic, the paper also sheds light on why societies are often resistant to the message of economists, as well as on why they renounce certain policies, such as "cruel and unusual punishments", irrespective of effectiveness considerations, in order to express their being "civilized". |
| Keywords: | motivation, incentives, esteem, reputation, honor, stigma, social norms, culture, taxation, law, punishments, norms-based interventions, expressive content |
| JEL: | D64 D82 H41 K1 K42 Z13 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6290&r=evo |
| By: | López-Pérez, Raúl (Departamento de Análisis Económico (Teoría e Historia Económica). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.); Spiegelman, Eli (Departement des sciences économiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Canada.) |
| Abstract: | Recent experimental evidence suggests that some people dislike telling lies, and tell the truth even at a cost. We use experiments as well to study the socio-demographic covariates of such lie aversion, and find gender and religiosity to be without predictive value. However, subjects’ major is predictive: Business and Economics (B&E) subjects lie significantly more frequently than other majors. This is true even after controlling for subjects’ beliefs about the overall rate of deception, which predict behavior very well: Although B&E subjects expect most others to lie in our decision problem, the effect of major remains. An instrumental variables analysis suggests that the effect is not simply one of selection: It seems that studying B&E has a causal impact on behavior. |
| Keywords: | Communication; honesty; lie aversion; major; norms. |
| JEL: | C70 C91 D03 D64 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uam:wpaper:201204&r=evo |