Efficiency, equality and reciprocity in social preferences: A comparison of students and a representative population

Alexander Cappelen, Knut Nygaard (), Erik Sørensen and Bertil Tungodden
Additional contact information
Knut Nygaard: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: NHH , Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway, http://www.nhh.no/en/research---faculty/department-of-economics/sam/cv/nygaard,-knut.aspx

No 28/2010, Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics

Abstract: The debate between Engelmann and Strobel (2004, 2006) and Fehr, Naef, and Schmidt (2006) highlights the important question of the extent to which lab experiments on student populations can serve to identify the motivational forces present in society at large. We address this question by comparing the lab behavior of a student group and a non-student group, where the non-student group on all observable factors is almost identical to the representative adult population in Norway. All participants take part in exactly the same lab experiment. Our study shows that students may not be informative of the role of social preferences in the broader population. We nd that the representative participants differ fundamentally from students both in their level of selfishness and in the relative importance assigned to different moral motives. It is also interesting to note that while we do not find any substantial gender differences among the students, males and females in the representative group differ fundamentally in their moral motivation.

Keywords: Representative sample; Social preferences; Laboratory experiment. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2010-11-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-edu, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nhh.no/Admin/Public/DWSDownload.aspx?Fi ... pers%2f2010%2f28.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2010_028

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics NHH, Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Synne Stormoen ().