Impure altruism and impure selfishness

Altruism refers to a willingness to benefit others, even at one's own expense. In contrast, selfishness refers to prioritizing one's own interests with no consideration for others. However, even if an agent is selfish, he might nevertheless act as if he were altruistic out of selfish concerns triggered when his action is observed; that is, he might seek to feel pride in acting altruistically and to avoid the shame of acting selfishly. We call such behavior impurely altruistic. Alternatively, even if an agent is altruistic, he might nevertheless give in to the temptation to act selfishly. We call such behavior impurely selfish. This paper axiomatizes a model that distinguishes altruism from impure altruism and selfishness from impure selfishness. In the model, unique real numbers separately capture altruism and the other forces of pride, shame, and the temptation to act selfishly. We show that the model can describe recent experiments on dictator games with an exit option. In addition, we describe an empirical puzzle that government spending only partially crowds out consumers' donations, contrary to the prediction based on standard consumer theory

On the notion of altruism

Recently, it seems that unselfish aspects such as altruism and fairness receive more attention in the economic literature. In this paper some historical opinions on the notion of altruism are presented. Particularly, the views of Spencer and Edgeworth are discussed. Moreover, an effort is made to develop some links into modern issues.Altruism;history of economic thought

Pro-Social Behaviours: Between Altruism and Self-interest

A widely discussed attribute in the economic literature is the prevalence of self-interest. In this article we seek to analyze the concept of altruism from the economic perspective and from the general perspective of human action. We endeavour to clarify the relative confusion around it and to analyze its relation with charity and volunteering. Then, we go further and analyse what is causing such actions. Based on this, we attempt to find out whether the pro-social actions can be considered an effect of self-interest, or, conversely, of altruism

Social Preferences and Deliberately Stochastic Behavior

This study proposes a tractable stochastic choice model to identify motivations for prosocial behavior, and to explore alternative motivations of deliberate randomization beyond ex-ante fairness concerns. To represent social preferences, we employ an additively perturbed utility model consisting of the sum of expected utility and a nonlinear cost function, where the utility function is purely selfish while the cost function depends on social preferences. Using the cost function, we study stochastic choice patterns to distinguish between stochastic inequity-averse behavior and stochastic shame-mitigating behavior. Moreover, we discuss how our model can complement recent experimental evidence of ex-post and ex-ante fairness concerns

Giving To Ingrates?

Models for voluntary provision of public goods predict free riding is rational unless the model includes a motive for the act of giving referred to as a “warm glow” in the literature. The source for this warm glow is likely to include the gratitude of the recipient. The experimental setting employed here controls for positive or negative reciprocity from the recipient of a gift to isolate the individual satisfaction from the act of giving as the remaining motivation for giving. The experimental treatment is whether the recipient is informed that his/her payoff includes a “gift” from another participant (donor or giver). The central finding is that donations increase when the donor/giver knows that the recipient knows that a gift has been provided. Key Words:

Impact of Recessions and the Business Cycle on Altruism

I examine how recessions and the business cycle impact the time individuals allocate to altruism, using American Time Use Survey data from 2002-2019. The aim of the paper was to create a measure of altruism to explore changes in attitudes towards charity and altruism instead of the financial ability to do so. Additionally, I want to understand how economic shocks, such as recessions, impact behaviors and habits across the US population. Using ordinary least squares and the Tobit model, I created two models to capture both changes during and after recessionary periods. The first model is a regression of individuals’ time allocated to altruistic actions on recessions, controlling for sex, employment, and race. I find that individuals do not spend significantly different amounts of time acting altruistically during recessionary periods. In the second model, I focus on how time spent acting altruistically differed in the years prior to and after 2008 compared to the year 2008. I find evidence that the 2008 recession corresponded to a decrease in altruistic activities up until 2019. The main implication of my results is that there is no necessary public policy action required regarding altruistic behavior during recessions. However, in the years after recessions, governments may need to introduce additional incentives for individuals to allocate more time toward altruism

A meta-analysis of the dictator game: how has individual generosity been impacted by the covid-19 pandemic

The present study investigated the impact of the historic COVID-19 pandemic with respect to individual generosity. An exploratory research question was developed based on the many explanatory factors that have been found linked to charitable giving. Literature in altruism, prosocial behavior, and pandemic phenomenon provided the theoretical background and rationale for the classic economics experiment, the Dictator Game, to serve as the outcome variable for individual generosity. A random-effects meta-analysis of means was conducted to evaluate the overall generosity measured from 6 dictator game studies (from a starting sample of 75) that were selected in a rigorous literature search and review process. Results of analysis find only a slight increase in individual generosity, which might be expected given the nature of human altruism. Future research should consider replication of this analysis when more COVID- 19 research has been peer-reviewed and published as it would improve the strength of some analyses conducted.Thesis (M.S.

\u27Feel the Warmth\u27 Glow: A Field Experiment on Manipulating the Act of Giving

We conducted a field experiment with a charitable group to investigate whether giving the donor an option to write a personalized holiday card to the recipient influences giving behavior. Over 1500 households were approached in a door-to-door campaign and randomized to either a treatment group, in which donors were presented with the option to write their own card for the recipient, or a control group, in which donors were not given the option to write their own card for the recipient. We predict that treatment should increase contributions through making the gift more meaningful, but may also decrease contributions by increasing the transaction and social costs of donating. We find evidence in favor of the negative effects of costs from treatment, and no evidence of increased giving. We also observe that our treatment crowds out small donors (donors giving $5 or less)