Altruism Spillovers: Are Behaviors in Context-Free Experiments Predictive of Altruism Toward a Naturally Occurring Public Good?

Susan Laury and Laura Taylor

No 2006-14, Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series from Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

Abstract: This paper addresses the external validity of experiments investigating the characteristics of altruism in the voluntary provision of public goods. We conduct two related experiments that allow us to examine whether individuals who act more altruistically in the context-free environment are also more likely to act altruistically toward a naturally-occurring public good. We find that laboratory behavior can be predictive of contributions toward naturally-occurring goods, but not in a uniform way. In fact, parametric measures of altruism do a poor job of predicting which subjects are most likely to contribute to a naturally-occurring public good.

JEL-codes: C91 D64 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2006-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-pbe and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://excen.gsu.edu/workingpapers/GSU_EXCEN_WP_2006-14.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Altruism spillovers: Are behaviors in context-free experiments predictive of altruism toward a naturally occurring public good (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:exc:wpaper:2006-14

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