American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Dictating the Risk: Experimental Evidence on Giving in Risky Environments
American Economic Review
vol. 103,
no. 1, February 2013
(pp. 415–37)
Abstract
We study if and how social preferences extend to risky environments. We provide experimental evidence from different versions of dictator games with risky outcomes and establish that preferences that are exclusively based on ex post or on ex ante comparisons cannot generate the observed behavioral patterns. The more money decision-makers transfer in the standard dictator game, the more likely they are to equalize payoff chances under risk. Risk to the recipient does, however, generally decrease the transferred amount. Ultimately, a utility function with a combination of ex post and ex ante fairness concerns may best describe behavior. (JEL C72, D63, D64, D81)Citation
Brock, J. Michelle, Andreas Lange, and Erkut Y. Ozbay. 2013. "Dictating the Risk: Experimental Evidence on Giving in Risky Environments." American Economic Review, 103 (1): 415–37. DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.1.415Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C72 Noncooperative Games
- D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- D64 Altruism; Philanthropy
- D81 Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty