The Economic Impact of Envy: Evidence from a Multi-Period Game with Attacks and Insurance

Philip Grossman and Mana Komai

No 01-13, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We report results from a multi-period game designed to stimulate feelings of envy. There are a number of important features of our game that distinguish it from previous games used to examine envy. A unique and important feature of our design is that it addresses the two negative effects of envy: the wasteful expenditure of resources in an attempt to harm others and the wasteful use of resources by those envied in an attempt to protect themselves. We find that as wasteful as attacks are, spending on protection against attacks, while individually rational, results in even more waste. Players purchase insurance at twice the rate of attacks. Our multiperiod game permits us to examine how subjects' behaviour motivated by envy or the threat of envious actions changes over time. We report evidence consistent with players learning that envious feelings are wasteful and are less satisfying than the foregone monetary rewards.

Keywords: anti-social preferences; envy; insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2013-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-ias
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/paper ... actgrossmankomai.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden (http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/papers/2013/0113economicimpactgrossmankomai.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.monash.edu/business/ [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.monash.edu/business)

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:mos:moswps:2013-01

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.monash.e ... esearch/publications

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Simon Angus ().