Sorting in Experiments with Application to Social Preferences

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lazear, Edward P.; Malmendier, Ulrike; Weber, Roberto A.
• 署名单位: Stanford University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of Zurich
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.4.1.136
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 136-163
• 关键词: impure altruism; self-selection; COMPETITION; incentives; fairness; stakes; entry

摘要

Individuals sort into and out of economic environments based on their preferences and in response to relative prices. We demonstrate the importance of such sorting for the measurement of social preferences, using two laboratory experiments. First, allowing subjects to avoid environments in which sharing is possible significantly reduces sharing. This reveals the existence of a type of individual who shares reluctantly, preferring to avoid the opportunity to share. Second, after subsidizing the sharing environment, the aggregate amount shared increases, but less is shared, on average, by those who enter. Thus, subsidies intended to induce more sharing have weak effects since they attract those who share the least.