Heterogeneous Preferences and Collective Action

T K Ahn, Elinor Ostrom and James Walker

Public Choice, 2003, vol. 117, issue 3-4, 295-314

Abstract: In recent years, scholars have turned to alternative representations of utility to capture motivational heterogeneity across individuals. In the research reported here, we examine two models of heterogeneous utility--linear-altruism and inequity-aversion--in the context of two-person, social dilemma games. Empirical tests are conducted drawing on data from experiments and surveys. We find that the model of inequity-aversion accounts for a substantial proportion of the preference types and behavior that are not explained by the standard model of self-interested preferences. In contrast, the altruism model does not provide a significant increase in explanatory power over the inequity-aversion model. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 2003
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