Individual Preferences for Giving

Raymond Fisman, Shachar Kariv and Daniel Markovits
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Raymond Fisman: Graduate School of Business, Columbia University
Shachar Kariv: Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
Daniel Markovits: Yale Law School, Yale University

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Abstract: This paper reports an experimental test of individual preferences for giving. We use graphical representations of modified Dictator Games that vary the price of giving. This generates a very rich data set well- suited to studying behavior at the level of the individual subject. We test the data for consistency with preference maximization, and we recover underlying preferences and forecast behavior using both nonparametric and parametric methods. Our results emphasize that classical demand theory can account surprisingly well for behaviors observed in the laboratory and that individual preferences for giving are highly heterogeneous, ranging from utilitarian to Rawlsian to perfectly selfish.

Keywords: Experiment; Fairness; Dictator Game; and Revealed Preference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C79 C91 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-exp
Date: 2005-04-14
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 41
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpga:0504007

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