2002/08/01 by Gary Charness, G. Charness, Matthew Rabin +1 · 651 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Economic Theory and Institutions #Economics #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #Experimental economics #Inequity aversion #Law #Mathematics #Microeconomics #Outcome (game theory) #Political science #Psychology #Reciprocity (cultural anthropology) #Sacrifice #Simple (philosophy) #Social Welfare #Social preferences #Social psychology #Stochastic game #Test (biology) #Welfare
paper · open access · doi:10.1162/003355302760193904
published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(3), 817-869 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2002/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Departures from self-interest in economic experiments have recently inspired models of “social preferences.” We design a range of simple experimental games that test these theories more directly than existing experiments. Our experiments show that subjects are more concerned with increasing social welfare—sacrificing to increase the payoffs for all recipients, especially low-payoff recipients—than with reducing differences in payoffs (as supposed in recent models). Subjects are also motivated by reciprocity: they withdraw willingness to sacrifice to achieve a fair outcome when others are themselves unwilling to sacrifice, and sometimes punish unfair behavior.