Giving in Dictator Games: Regard for Others or Regard by Others?

Alexander Koch and Hans-Theo Normann

No 1703, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Recent bargaining experiments demonstrated an impact of anonymity and incomplete information on subjects' behavior. This has rekindled the question whether "fair" behavior is inspired by regard for others or is explained by external forces. To test for the importance of external pressure we compare a standard double blind dictator game to a treatment which provides no information about the source of dictator offers, and where recipients do not even know that they participate in an experiment. We find no differences between treatments. This suggests that those dictators who give are purely internally motivated, as asserted by models of other-regarding preferences.

Keywords: dictator game; altruism; social preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C91 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2005-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Southern Economic Journal, 2008, 75 (1), 223-231. revised working paper version

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1703.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Giving in Dictator Games: Regard for Others or Regard by Others? (2005)
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:iza:izadps:dp1703

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().