The effect of session size has largely been ignored in experimental studies, despite the possibility that it may play a role by changing people’s perception of the potential chance of encountering a certain type of people and by affecting the strength of the potential link between people. This...

Abstract: Studies of political favouritism in Africa often treat ethnic and regional favouritism as interchangeable concepts. The present paper distinguishes between the two and investigates their relative influence in Sub-Saharan Africa. Focusing on whether individuals perceive their ethnic...

Common identity and peer punishment have been identified as important means to reduce free riding and to promote cooperation in teamwork settings. This paper examines the relative importance of these two mechanisms, as well as the importance of income distribution in team cooperation. In a...

We explore the effect of income inequality and peer punishment on voluntary provision of public goods in an experimental context. Our sample draws from nine fishing communities in South-Africa where high levels of inequality prevail. We find that aggregate cooperation is higher in both the...

This paper examines the concern for relative standing among rural households in China. We use a survey-experimental method to measure to what extent poor Chinese farmers care about their relative income and find that the respondents care to a high degree. Compared to previous studies in...

This paper seeks to explain within as well as between country variation in preferences for redistribution in terms of self interest concerns, and an input based concept of fairness captured by the effects of beliefs about the causes of income differences. Results of estimations based on data for...

Using a random sample of individuals in rural Bangladesh, this paper investigates people’s preferences regarding relative values of lives when it comes to different ages of the individuals being saved. By assuming that an individual has preferences concerning different states of the world, and...

Although conventional economic theory proposes that only the absolute levels of income and consumption matter for people’s utility, there is much evidence that relative concerns are often important. This paper uses a survey-experimental method to measure people’s perceptions of the degree to...

Individuals’ preferences for risk and inequality are measured through experimental choices between hypothetical societies and lotteries. The median relative risk aversion, which is often seen to reflect social inequality aversion, is between 2 and 3. We also estimate the individual inequality...

A number of competing social preference models have been developed inspired by the evidence from economic experiments. We test the relative performance of some of these models using an experimental design that is aimed at capturing pure distributional concerns in a multi-person setting. We find...