Calamity, Aid and Indirect Reciprocity: the Long Run Impact of Tsunami on Altruism

Leonardo Becchetti, Stefano Castriota and Pierluigi Conzo

No 239, CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS

Abstract: Natural disasters have been shown to produce effects on social capital, risk and time preferences of victims. We run experiments on altruistic, time and risk preferences on a sample of Sri Lankan microfinance borrowers affected/unaffected by the tsunami shock in 2004 at a 7-year distance from the event (a distance longer than in most empirical studies). We find that people who suffered at least a damage from the event behave in dictator games less altruistically as senders (and expect less as receivers) than those who do not report any damage. Interestingly, among damaged, those who suffered also house damages or injuries send (expect) more than those reporting only losses to the economic activity. Since the former are shown to receive significantly more help than the latter we interpret this last finding as a form of indirect reciprocity.

Keywords: tsunami; disaster recovery; social preferences; altruism; development aid (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D03 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2012-07-06, Revised 2012-07-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Disaster, Aid, and Preferences: The Long-run Impact of the Tsunami on Giving in Sri Lanka (2017)
Working Paper: Calamity, Aid and Indirect Reciprocity: the Long Run Impact of Tsunami on Altruism (2012)
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