Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/56868 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Jena Economic Research Papers No. 2011,041
Publisher: 
Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena
Abstract: 
We assess the empirical validity of the overall theoretical framework of other-regarding preferences by focusing on those preference axioms that are common to all the prominent theories of outcome-based other-regarding preferences. This common set of preference axioms leads to a testable implication: the strict preference ranking of self over a finite number of alternatives lying on any straight line in the space of material payoffs to self and other will be single-peaked. The extent of single-peakedness varies from a high of 79% to a low of 54% across our treatments that are based on dictator and trust games. Positively and/or negatively other-regarding subjects are significantly less likely to report single-peaked rankings relative to self-regarding subjects. We delineate the potential reasons for violations of single-peakedness and discuss the implications of our findings for theoretical modeling of other-regarding preferences.
Subjects: 
other-regarding preferences
social preferences
decision making under risk
single-peaked preferences
experiments
JEL: 
C70
C91
D63
D81
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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