Is Altruism Feasible? Interdependent Preferences Provide the Answer

Vicki Knoblauch ()

No 2001-04, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: Is it possible to be altruistic in the face of altruism? With a naive definition of altruism, the answer is no. If an altruistic consumer is defined to be one whose preferences over allocations satisfy an appropriate interdependence condition, then the answer is yes. However, altruism in the face of malice is impossible. One of our findings is that if two consumers are mutually altruistic, exactly one of them should adopt selfish preferences over allocations.

Keywords: altruism; interdependent preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2001-11
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