Altruism, understood as the individual disposition to sacrifice personal income to improve someone else’s income can be a rational choice strategy which responds to different motivations, incentives and institutions, in a consistent way with the donor’s optimization logic. In this article we...

Using a minimum effort game at the onset of a conditional cash transfer in Colombia, we document that increasing exposure time to the intervention is associated with a higher (lower) probability of beneficiaries choosing high (low) effort. We argue that program-induced links between...

This paper uses an experimental field approach to investigate the pro-social preferences and behavior of social services providers and the behavior of potential beneficiaries in Bogota, Colombia. Field experiments were conducted using games including a newly designed Distributive Dictator Game...

Although social capital has been considered of the utmost importance for development and poverty alleviation by governments and NGOs, it remains a complex and elusive concept. Different dimensions of social capital form part of the puzzle: cooperation is an individual other-regarding preference;...

Promotion of pro-social behavior in social dilemmas has been subject to an increased interest among social scientists and policy makers due to the relevance of Common Pool Resources (CPR) in long-run human well-being. Although economists know a lot about the effect of incentives on pro-social...

Intrinsic motivation is shaped by attitudes towards others. In spite of their potential relevance for policy design, identifying individual preference types beyond population distributions remains a challenge. We use data from a common pool resource (CPR) game in the fi eld (935 individuals, 25%...

This paper documents a field experiment on how peer recognition affects cooperation in the workplace. Using an online public goods game in a large financial corporation in Colombia, we show that both public and private recognition have a significant within-subjects effect on employee voluntary...

Using a minimum effort game at the onset of a conditional cash transfer in Colombia, we document that increasing exposure time to the intervention is associated with a higher (lower) probability of beneficiaries choosing high (low) effort. We argue that program-induced links between...

Policies and explicit private incentives designed for self-regarding individuals sometimes are less effective or even counterproductive when they diminish altruism, ethical norms and other social preferences. Evidence from 51 experimental studies indicates that this crowding out effect is...