Logo Logo
Help
Contact
Switch Language to German

Fehr, Ernst; Naef, Michael and Schmidt, Klaus M. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5011-0828 (October 2004): The Role of Equality and Efficiency in Social Preferences. SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper No. 30 [PDF, 958kB]

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.

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item