Endogenous Preferences and Social-Dilemma Institutions

Anders Poulsen () and Odile Poulsen

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), 2006, vol. 162, issue 4, 627-660

Abstract: There is robust experimental evidence that some people have selfish preferences, and others have social, or other-regarding, preferences. This paper seeks to explain why there is such preference heterogeneity. In our approach preferences are endogenous to the economy's institutional setup. We consider institutions of the social-dilemma type. Our main result characterizes the endogenous preferences: There is, under a wide set of institutional setups, a unique endogenous preference distribution, where reciprocal, altruistic, and selfish preferences coexist. These results may contribute to understanding how institutions affect preferences.

JEL-codes: B41 C70 C72 D74 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/endogenous- ... 28093245606779252742 (text/html)
Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(200612)162:4_627:epasi_2.0.tx_2-g

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG, P.O.Box 2040, 72010 Tübingen, Germany

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE) is currently edited by Gerd Mühlheußer and Bayer, Ralph-C

More articles in Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE) from Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Wolpert ().