The effect of time preferences on altruism

Davide Dottori and Caterina Giannetti

Discussion Papers from Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Abstract: We study the effect of time preference on donations relying on a panel dataset of Italian households. After developing an intertemporal model to derive theorethical implications on the relationship between impatience and altruistic donation, we address the issue empirically, relying on a quasiexperimental setting. We find that both the amount and the probability of donating (i.e. altruism) vary non linearly with impatience in intertemporal choice, eventually declining at higher level of impatience. Consistent with previous experimental evidence, these results support the view that psychological discounting matters for altruistic behaviour and, more in general, that individual parameters, often not directly observable, add up to tax policies to determine altruistic behaviours.

Keywords: Two-limit Tobit; Generalized Propensity Score; Quasi-experiment; Altruism; Discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 D03 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-soc
Note: ISSN 2039-1854
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pie:dsedps:2017/226

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