Rich meets poor : an international fairness experiment
Working paper
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Date
2008-10Metadata
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- Discussion papers (SAM) [658]
Abstract
Why do people in rich countries not transfer more of their income to people in
the world's poorest countries? To study this question and the relative importance
of needs, entitlements, and nationality in people's social preferences, we conducted a
real effort fairness experiment where people in two of the world's richest countries,
Norway and Germany, interacted directly with people in Uganda and Tanzania, two
of the world's poorest countries. In this experiment, the participants were given the
opportunity to transfer money to poor persons with whom they were matched. The
study provides four main Findings. First, entitlement considerations are crucial in
explaining the distributive behavior of rich people in the experiment; second, needs
considerations matter a lot for some participants; third, the participants acted as moral
cosmopolitans; and finally, the participants' choices are consistent with a self-serving
bias in their social preferences.
Publisher
Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. Department of EconomicsSeries
Discussion paper2008:22