The Role of Equality and Efficiency in Social Preferences

Fehr, Ernst and Naef, Michael and Schmidt, Klaus M. (October 2004): The Role of Equality and Efficiency in Social Preferences. SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper No. 30

Abstract

Engelmann and Strobel (AER 2004) claim that a combination of efficiency seeking and minmax preferences dominates inequity aversion in simple dictator games. This result relies on a strong subject pool effect. The participants of their experiments were undergraduate students of economics and business administration who self-selected into their field of study and learned early on that efficiency is desirable. We show that for non-economists the preference for efficiency is much less pronounced. We also find a gender effect indicating that women are more egalitarian than men. However, perhaps surprisingly, the dominance of equality over efficiency is unrelated to political attitudes.

• Item Type: Paper (Discussion Paper)
• Keywords: Social Preferences, Inequity Aversion, Efficiency Preferences
• Collections: Special Research Fields > Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems; Special Research Fields > Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems > A4 - Unvollständige Verträge, Marktinteraktion und soziale Vergleichsprozesse
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics
• JEL Classification: C7, C91, C92, D63, D64
• Language: English