Altruistic Capital

Nava Ashraf and Oriana Bandiera

American Economic Review, 2017, vol. 107, issue 5, 70-75

Abstract: To understand altruistic behavior, we must understand the process through which altruism develops and is shaped by the agents' own choices and exogenous factors. We introduce the concept of altruistic capital, which grows with effort devoted to altruistic acts and facilitates future altruism. We illustrate its potential use in the context of banking and conclude by showing that returns to altruistic effort shape the agent's choices and are shaped by external events such as the financial crisis.

JEL-codes: D11 D63 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171097
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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