Digit Ratios and Social Preferences: A Comment on Buser (2012)

Pablo Brañas-Garza and Jaromír Kovářík

Working Papers from Chapman University, Economic Science Institute

Abstract: Buser (2012) reports an association between the second-to-fourth digit ratio, a biomarker of the exposure to prenatal sex hormones, and behavior in several classic experimental games designed to elicit prosocial attitudes. His subjects self-report whether they have shorter, equal, or larger ring than index nger. We argue that this elicitation method is inappropriate. It generates a poor proxy for the digit ratio as it su ers from measurement errors. As a result, using this variable in the regression analysis may lead to inconsistent estimates.

Keywords: Digit ratio; measurement errors; endogeneity; social preferences; non-monotonicity; altruism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 7 pages
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:chu:wpaper:13-31

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