Comparing Real and Hypothetical Incentives in Giving and Money Burning Experiments

David Masclet and Therese Rebiere

Annals of Economics and Statistics, 2023, issue 152, 65-102

Abstract: This paper examines experimentally how social and anti-social decisions respond to hypothetical or real incentives. Our experiment consists of three games: i) a Modified Dictator Game, ii) a Money Giving Game, and iii) a Money Burning Game. Although we find different size effects (quantitative differences) across treatments, our data indicate very similar directional changes (qualitative similarities) relative to initial endowment distribution and the price of the decision. These findings suggest that if we are mainly interested in qualitative (directional) findings, then using hypothetical incentives may be relevant and considered as a diluted version of the real ones.

Keywords: Real versus Hypothetical Incentives; Experiments; Social and anti-social Preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 C91 D00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adr:anecst:y:2023:i:152:p:65-102

DOI: 10.2307/48754785

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