Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/96745 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 8020
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study with a sample of 1,070 primary school children, aged seven to eleven years, how altruism in a donation experiment is related to children's risk attitudes and intertemporal choices. Examining such a relationship is motivated by theories of reciprocal altruism that provide a cornerstone to understand human social behavior. We find that higher risk tolerance and patience in intertemporal choice increase, in general, the level of donations, albeit the effects are non-linear. We confirm earlier results that altruism increases with age during childhood and that girls are more altruistic than boys. Having older brothers makes subjects less altruistic.
Subjects: 
altruism
donations
risk attitudes
intertemporal choices
experiment
children
JEL: 
C91
D03
D63
D64
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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