Where do social preferences come from?

Chaning Jang and John Lynham

Economics Letters, 2015, vol. 137, issue C, 25-28

Abstract: Where do preferences for fairness come from? We use a unique field setting to test for a spillover of sharing norms from the workplace to a laboratory experiment. Fishermen working in teams receive random income shocks (catching fish) that they must regularly divide among themselves. We demonstrate a clear correlation between sharing norms in the field and sharing norms in the lab. Furthermore, the spillover effect is stronger for fishermen who have been exposed to a sharing norm for longer, suggesting that our findings are not driven by selection effects. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that work environments shape social preferences.

Keywords: Ultimatum game; Social preferences; Fairness; Workplace spillovers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B4 C7 C9 D1 Q2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Working Paper: Where Do Social Preferences Come From? (2015)
Working Paper: Where Do Social Preferences Come From? (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:137:y:2015:i:c:p:25-28

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2015.09.004

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