The goal of this paper is to draw some lessons for economic theory from research in psychology, social psychology and, more briefly, in biology, which purports to explain the "formation" of social preferences. We elicit the basic mechanisms whereby a variety of social preferences are determined...

Altruism, giving and pro-social conduct, and reciprocity, are the basis of the existence and performance of societies, through their various occurrences: in families; among the diverse motives of the political and public sector; as the general respect and moral conduct which permit life in...

In the U.S. and Europe, a ban on a market in human organs has been in place since 1984. The system of organ procurement, therefore, relies on altruistic donation from stranger to stranger. The principle intellectual and policy issues surrounding organ procurement concern the question of whether,...

This paper surveys economic models where cooperation arises in the workplace because individuals' utility functions involve a concern for others (altruism) or a desire to respond to like with like (reciprocity). It also discusses empirical evidence which bears on the relevance of these theories....

Economists believe that a problem of team production results from the desirability of production in (sometimes large) groups, the difficulty of rewarding individual group members based on their (difficult or impossible to measure) individual contributions, and the presumed interest of each...

This chapter examines the role of altruistic motives in the economic analysis of public social transfers, both from a positive and from a normative point of view. The positive question is to know whether we can fully neglect altruistic considerations to explain the development or sustainability...

Standard homo economicus lives in a world of complete markets and maximizes utility which is a function of his personal consumption. This approximation cannot account for parents making transfers to adult children, children taking care of old parents, nor for gifts, inheritance and many other...

In this chapter, we explore why donations are made to nonprofit organizations instead of other institutions or directly to recipients; how such nonprofit organizations behave; and what is the appropriate public policy toward subsidizing and regulating these entities. We focus on donative...

Most models of family transfers consider only two generations and focus on two motives: altruism and exchange. They also assume perfect substitution between inter vivos financial transfers and bequests to children. On the contrary, this survey of recent developments in the literature emphasizes...

Behind my reciprocation of a friend's gift may lie both instrumental reasons (I expect further future gifts) and `communicative' reasons (I want to establish or confirm a friendship per se). In a theory of rational individual action, such `communicative' reasons can be incorporated as an...