Recession Experiences During Early Adulthood Shape Prosocial Attitudes Later in Life

Jan Bietenbeck, Uwe Sunde and Petra Thiemann
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Uwe Sunde: LMU München

No 428, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: This paper explores whether the experience of a severe recession during early adulthood shapes individuals’ prosocial attitudes. The analysis uses survey responses to experimentally validated questions that measure prosocial attitudes for approximately 65,000 respondents in 75 countries. The identification approach exploits variation in recession experiences across 78 different birth cohorts. We find that exposure to a recession during early adulthood is associated with lower levels of prosociality later in life. The effect only emerges for experiences during impressionable years (age 18-25), mainly affects prosocial attitudes among men, and is orthogonal to the effect of experiences with democracy.

Keywords: prosocial attitudes; impressionable years; experience effects; cohort effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 E30 E71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-09-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Recession Experiences During Early Adulthood Shape Prosocial Attitudes Later in Life (2023)
Working Paper: Recession Experiences during Early Adulthood Shape Prosocial Attitudes Later in Life (2023)
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