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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Vicente Calabuig (ERICES, Universidad de Valencia); Enrique Fatas (University of East Anglia); Gonzalo Olcina (ERICES, Universidad de Valencia); Ismael Rodriguez-Lara (ERICES, Universidad de Valencia) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effect of punishment in a trust game with endowment heterogeneity in which the investor may punish the allocator at a cost. Our results indicate that the effect of the punishment crucially depends on the investor’s capacity of punishment, that is measured in our experiment by the proportion of the allocator’s payoffs that the investor can destroy. We find that punishment fosters trust when the capacity of punishment is high (i.e., when the cost of punishing is relatively low). Otherwise, punishment fails to promote trusting behavior, crowding out intrinsic motivation to trust. Trustworthiness is higher with punishment than without punishment, except if investors have a high capacity of punishment |
| Keywords: | Trust game, punishment, crowding-out, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, experimental economics |
| JEL: | C91 D02 D03 D69 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbe:wpaper:0413&r=evo |
| By: | Maria Zumbuehl; Thomas Dohmen; Gerard Pfann |
| Abstract: | We study empirically whether there is scope for parents to shape the economic preferences and attitudes of their children through purposeful investments. We exploit information on the risk and trust attitudes of parents and their children, as well as rich information about parental efforts in the upbringing of their children from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study. Our results show that parents who invest more in the upbringing of their children are more similar to them with respect to risk and trust attitudes and thus transmit their own attitudes more strongly. The results are robust to including variables on the relationship between children and parents, family size, and the parents’ socioeconomic background. |
| Keywords: | parental investments, risk preferences, trust, intergenerational transmission, cultural economics, family economics, social interactions |
| JEL: | D80 J12 J13 J62 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp570&r=evo |
| By: | Quang NGUYEN (Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637332, Singapore); Marie Claire VILLEVAL (University of Lyon, F-69007, France; CNRS, GATE, 93, ChemindesMouilles, F-69130, Ecully, France; IZA, Bonn, Germany); Hui XU (University of Lyon, F-69007, France; CNRS, GATE, 93, ChemindesMouilles, F-69130, Ecully, France. Beijing Normal University,19 XinjiekouWai Street, Beijing 100875, P. R. China.) |
| Abstract: | This study incorporates risk, time, and social preferences. We conduct a field experiment in Vietnamese villages and estimate the effect of the Cumulative Prospect Theory and of quasi-hyperbolic time preferences parameters on trust and trustworthiness. We find that both probability sensitivity and risk aversion are not related to trust. Yet, more risk averse and less present biased participants are found to be trustworthier. People with longer exposure to a collectivist economy tend to have a lower level of trust and trustworthiness. |
| Keywords: | Trust, Trustworthiness, Cumulative Prospect Theory, Risk preferences, Time preferences, Quasi–hyperbolic preferences, Vietnam, Field experiment |
| JEL: | C91 C93 D81 D90 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nan:wpaper:1301&r=evo |
| By: | Binzel, Christine (Heidelberg University); Fehr, Dietmar (WZB - Social Science Research Center Berlin) |
| Abstract: | 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. |
| Keywords: | social distance, reciprocity, giving, networks, sorting |
| JEL: | C93 D64 L14 O12 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7516&r=evo |
| By: | André Barreira da Silva Rocha |
| Abstract: | I propose an evolutionary game model to study competition among a large number of firms, in which I take into account the issues of social responsibility, government monitoring of environmental compliance and consumer boycott. A large number of firms sell their homogeneous good in an almost perfect competitive market, where consumers have preferences for socially responsible firms. Firms may incur additional costs and carry out social investment and/or environmental investment. Each time interval, a firm may be called to play a competition-stage game, in which it tries to sell its good, or an audit-stage game, in which inspectors audit its degree of environmental compliance. |
| Keywords: | Replicator dynamics, social responsibility, boycott, investment, regulation. |
| JEL: | C73 M14 L51 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lec:leecon:13/17&r=evo |
| By: | Carlsson, Fredrik (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Yang, Xiaojun (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | We examine whether and to what extent joint choices are more or less patient and time-consistent than individual choices in households. We use data from an artefactual field experiment where both individual and joint time preferences were elicited. We find a substantial shift from individual to joint household decisions. Interestingly, joint decisions do not only generate beneficial shifts, i.e., patient and time-consistent shifts. On the contrary, a majority of the observed shifts are impatient and time-inconsistent shifts. A number of observable characteristics are significantly correlated with these shifts in preferences from individual decisions to joint decisions. |
| Keywords: | individual decisions; joint decisions; patience; time-consistency; choice shifts; rural China |
| JEL: | C91 C92 C93 D10 |
| Date: | 2013–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0569&r=evo |
| By: | Gustav Feichtinger; Alexia Prskawetz; Andrea Seidl; Christa Simon; Stefan Wrzaczek |
| Abstract: | In general, the spreading of egalitarian family values has often been associated with a decline in fertility. However, recently a rebound in fertility has been observed in several industrialized countries. A possible explanation of this trend may be the spread of egalitarian values that induced institutional changes - such as expansion of child care facilities and father leave – fostering the combination of parenthood and the egalitarian lifestyle. In our paper we build up a formal model to study the diffusion from traditional to egalitarian gender-behavior and its impact on fertility. We find that the long-run development of the total fertility within a population not only depends on the pace of diffusion of egalitarianism and the extent to which social interactions affect the egalitarians’ birth rates, but also on the initial number of traditionalists and egalitarians. We show under which conditions a fertility decline is followed by a subsequent recovery. |
| Keywords: | Egalitarianism, family models, diffusion, fertility. |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vid:wpaper:1302&r=evo |
| By: | Stefania Albanesi (Federal Reserve Bank of New York and CEPR); Claudia Olivetti (Boston University and NBER) |
| Abstract: | U.S. fertility rose from a low of 2.27 children for women born in 1908 to a peak of 3.21 children for women born in 1932. It dropped to a new low of 1.74 children for women born in 1949, before stabilizing for subsequent cohorts. We propose a novel explanation for this boom-bust pattern, linking it to the huge improvements in maternal health that started in the mid 1930s. Our hypothesis is that the improvements in maternal health contributed to the mid-twentieth century baby boom and generated a rise in women's human capital, ultimately leading to a decline in desired fertility for subsequent cohorts. To examine this link empirically, we exploit the large cross-state variation in the magnitude of the decline in pregnancy-related mortality and the differential exposure by cohort. We find that the decline in maternal mortality is associated with a rise in fertility for women born between 1921 and 1940, with a rise in college and high school graduation rates for women born in 1933-1950 relative to previous cohorts, and with a decline in fertility for women born in 1941-1950 relative to those born in 1921-1940. The analysis provides new insights on the determinants of fertility in the U.S. and other countries that experienced similar improvements in maternal health. |
| Keywords: | Maternal mortality, Fertility choice, Baby boom, human capital |
| JEL: | J11 J13 N12 N3 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2013-003&r=evo |