Altruism and fairness in experimental decisions

Stefan Kohler

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2011, vol. 80, issue 1, 101-109

Abstract: Experimental evidence from dictator games and simple choice situations indicates concerns for fairness and social welfare in human decision making. At the same time, models of inequality averse agents fail to explain the experimental data of individuals who reduce their payoff below a fair split in order to maximize social welfare. This paper presents a linear model of altruism and inequality aversion which reconciles inequality aversion with departures from distributional fairness if welfare is thereby gained. It also establishes a unique link between altruism and interest in social welfare in the proposed model.

Keywords: Behavioral game theory; Efficiency; Inequality aversion; Other-regarding preferences; Social preferences; Welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C70 C91 D03 D63 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Fairness vs. Social Welfare in Experimental Decisions (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:80:y:2011:i:1:p:101-109

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2011.02.014

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