Efficiency-enhancing signalling in the Samaritan's dilemma

Johan Lagerl–f
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Johan N. M. Lagerlöf ()

Economic Journal, 2004, vol. 114, issue 492, pages 55-69

Abstract: Suppose an altruistic person, "A", is willing to transfer resources to a second person, "B", if "B" comes upon hard times. If "B" anticipates that "A" will act in this manner, "B" will save too little from both agents' point of view. This is the Samaritan's dilemma. This paper shows that the undersaving result is mitigated if we relax the standard assumption of complete information, because if "A" is uncertain about how big "B"'s need for support is, "B" will have an incentive to signal that he is in great need by saving more than he otherwise would have done. Copyright 2004 Royal Economic Society.

Date: 2004
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent ... &year=2004&part=null link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Efficiency-Enhancing Signalling in the Samaritan's Dilemma (2002)
Working Paper: Efficiency-Enhancing Signalling in the Samaritan's Dilemma (2003)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:114:y:2004:i:492:p:55-69

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... al.asp?ref=0013-0133

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is edited by Antonio Ciccone, Leonardo Felli, Steve Machin, Andrew Scott, Steve Pischke and David Myatt

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().