We document the relationship between distributional preferences and voting decisions in a large and diverse sample of Americans. Using a generalized dictator game, we generate individual-level ...measures of fair-mindedness (the weight on oneself versus others) and equality-efficiency tradeoffs. Subjects' equality-efficiency tradeoffs predict their political decisions: equality-focused subjects are more likely to have voted for Barack Obama in 2012, and to be affiliated with the Democratic Party. Our findings shed light on how American voters are motivated by their distributional preferences.
Individual Preferences for Giving Fisman, Raymond; Kariv, Shachar; Markovits, Daniel
The American economic review,
12/2007, Letnik:
97, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We utilize graphical representations of Dictator Games which generate rich individual-level data. Our baseline experiment employs budget sets over feasible payoff-pairs. We test these data for ...consistency with utility maximization, and we recover the underlying preferences for giving (trade-offs between own payoffs and the payoffs of others). Two further experiments augment the analysis. An extensive elaboration employs three-person budget sets to distinguish preferences for giving from social preferences (trade-offs between the payoffs of others). And an intensive elaboration employs step-shaped sets to distinguish between behaviors that are compatible with well-behaved preferences and those compatible only with not well-behaved cases.
We studied the distributional preferences of an elite cadre of Yale Law School students, a group that will assume positions of power in U.S. society. Our experimental design allows us to test whether ...redistributive decisions are consistent with utility maximization and to decompose underlying preferences into two qualitatively different tradeoffs: fair-mindedness versus self-interest, and equality versus efficiency. Yale Law School subjects are more consistent than subjects drawn from the American Life Panel, a diverse sample of Americans. Relative to the American Life Panel, Yale Law School subjects are also less fair-minded and substantially more efficiency-focused. We further show that our measure of equality-efficiency tradeoffs predicts Yale Law School students' career choices: Equality-minded subjects are more likely to be employed at nonprofit organizations.
Who Is (More) Rational? Choi, Syngjoo; Kariv, Shachar; Müller, Wieland ...
The American economic review,
06/2014, Letnik:
104, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Revealed preference theory offers a criterion for decision-making quality: if decisions are high quality then there exists a utility function the choices maximize. We conduct a large-scale experiment ...to test for consistency with utility maximization. Consistency scores vary markedly within and across socioeconomic groups. In particular, consistency is strongly related to wealth: A standard deviation increase in consistency is associated with 15-19 percent more household wealth. This association is quantitatively robust to conditioning on correlates of unobserved constraints, preferences, and beliefs. Consistency with utility maximization under laboratory conditions thus captures decision-making ability that applies across domains and influences important real-world outcomes.
We explore Bayes-rational sequential decision making in a game with pure information externalities, where each decision maker observes only her predecessor's binary action. Under perfect information ...the martingale property of the stochastic learning process is used to establish convergence of beliefs and actions. Under imperfect information, in contrast, beliefs and actions cycle forever. However, despite the stochastic instability, over time the private information is ignored and decision makers become increasingly likely to imitate their predecessors. Consequently, we observe longer and longer periods of uniform behavior, punctuated by increasingly rare switches.
To better understand how support for redistributive policies is shaped by macroeconomic shocks, we explore how distributional preferences changed during the recent “Great Recession.” We conducted ...identical modified dictator games during both the recession and the preceding economic boom. The experiments capture subjects' selfishness (the weight on one's own payoff) and equality–efficiency tradeoffs (concerns for reducing differences in payoffs versus increasing total payoffs), which we then compare across economic conditions. Subjects exposed to recession exhibit greater selfishness and higher emphasis on efficiency relative to equality. Reproducing recessionary conditions inside the laboratory by confronting subjects with possible negative payoffs weakly intensifies selfishness and increases efficiency orientation, bolstering the interpretation that differing economic circumstances drive our results.
•We conducted identical modified dictator games during the “Great Recession” and the preceding economic boom.•In the experiments, we present subjects with a decision problem that can be interpreted as a standard economic problem (e.g. the selection of a bundle from a standard budget set).•These decision problems are presented using a novel graphical experimental interface that allows for the collection of a rich individual-level data set.•We decompose distributional preferences into two distinct components – fair-mindedness (tradeoffs between oneself and others) and equality-efficiency tradeoffs.•We find that subjects exposed to recession exhibit greater selfishness and higher emphasis on efficacy relative to equality.•Reproducing recessionary conditions inside the laboratory intensifies selfishness and increases efficacy orientation.
Social preferences of future physicians Li, Jing; Dow, William H.; Kariv, Shachar
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
11/2017, Letnik:
114, Številka:
48
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We measure the social preferences of a sample of US medical students and compare their preferences with those of the general population sampled in the American Life Panel (ALP). We also compare the ...medical students with a subsample of highly educated, wealthy ALP subjects as well as elite law school students and undergraduate students. We further associate the heterogeneity in social preferences within medical students to the tier ranking of their medical schools and their expected specialty choice. Our experimental design allows us to rigorously distinguish altruism from preferences regarding equality–efficiency tradeoffs and accurately measure both at the individual level rather than pooling data or assuming homogeneity across subjects. This is particularly informative, because the subjects in our sample display widely heterogeneous social preferences in terms of both their altruism and equality–efficiency tradeoffs. We find that medical students are substantially less altruistic and more efficiency focused than the average American. Furthermore, medical students attending the top-ranked medical schools are less altruistic than those attending lower-ranked schools. We further show that the social preferences of those attending top-ranked medical schools are statistically indistinguishable from the preferences of a sample of elite law school students. The key limitation of this study is that our experimental measures of social preferences have not yet been externally validated against actual physician practice behaviors. Pending this future research, we probed the predictive validity of our experimental measures of social preferences by showing that the medical students choosing higher-paying medical specialties are less altruistic than those choosing lower-paying specialties.
Experimental evidence of physician social preferences Li, Jing; Casalino, Lawrence P.; Fisman, Raymond ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
07/2022, Letnik:
119, Številka:
28
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Physicians’ professional ethics require that they put patients’ interests ahead of their own and that they should allocate limited medical resources efficiently. Understanding physicians’ extent of ...adherence to these principles requires understanding the social preferences that lie behind them. These social preferences may be divided into two qualitatively different trade-offs: the trade-off between self and other (altruism) and the trade-off between reducing differences in payoffs (equality) and increasing total payoffs (efficiency). We experimentally measure social preferences among a nationwide sample of practicing physicians in the United States. Our design allows us to distinguish empirically between altruism and equality–efficiency orientation and to accurately measure both trade-offs at the level of the individual subject. We further compare the experimentally measured social preferences of physicians with those of a representative sample of Americans, an “elite” subsample of Americans, and a nationwide sample of medical students. We find that physicians’ altruism stands out. Although most physicians place a greater weight on self than on other, the share of physicians who place a greater weight on other than on self is twice as large as for all other samples—32% as compared with 15 to 17%. Subjects in the general population are the closest to physicians in terms of altruism. The higher altruism among physicians compared with the other samples cannot be explained by income or age differences. By contrast, physicians’ preferences regarding equality–efficiency orientation are not meaningfully different from those of the general sample and elite subsample and are less efficiency oriented than medical students.
By using graphical representations of simple portfolio choice problems, we generate a very rich dataset to study behavior under uncertainty at the level of the individual subject. We test the data ...for consistency with the maximization hypothesis, and we estimate preferences using a two-parameter utility function based on Faruk Gul (1991). This specification provides a good interpretation of the data at the individual level and can account for the highly heterogeneous behaviors observed in the laboratory. The parameter estimates jointly describe attitudes toward risk and allow us to characterize the distribution of risk preferences in the population.
Using comprehensive account records, this paper examines how individuals adjusted spending and saving in response to a temporary drop in liquidity due to the 2013 U.S. government shutdown. The ...shutdown cut paychecks by 40% for affected employees, which was recovered within 2 weeks. Because the shutdown affected only the timing of payments, it provides a distinctive experiment allowing estimates of the response to a liquidity shock holding income constant. Spending dropped sharply, implying a naïve estimate of 58 cents less spending for every dollar of lost liquidity. This estimate overstates the consumption response. While many individuals had low liquid assets, they used multiple sources of short-term liquidity to smooth consumption. Sources of short-term liquidity include delaying recurring payments such as for mortgages and credit card balances.
PDF
