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Taking, giving, and impure altruism in dictator games

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Oleg Korenok ,
Edward L. Millner  and
Laura Razzolini
Oleg Korenok
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Virginia Commonwealth University, 301 West Main Street, Richmond, VA 23284-4000, USA
Edward L. Millner*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Virginia Commonwealth University, 301 West Main Street, Richmond, VA 23284-4000, USA
Laura Razzolini
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Virginia Commonwealth University, 301 West Main Street, Richmond, VA 23284-4000, USA
*
emillner@vcu.edu
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Abstract

We show that, if giving is equivalent to not taking, impure altruism could account for List’s (in Journal of Political Economy 115(3):482–493, 2007) finding that the payoff to recipients in a dictator game decreases when the dictator has the option to take. We examine behavior in dictator games with different taking options but equivalent final payoff possibilities. We find that recipients tend to earn more as the amount the dictator must take to achieve a given final payoff increases, a result consistent with the hypothesis that the cold prickle of taking is stronger than the warm glow of giving. We conclude that not taking is not equivalent to giving and agree with List (in Journal of Political Economy 115(3):482–493, 2007) that the current social preference models fail to rationalize the observed data.

Keywords

Dictator gameImpure altruismTaking

JEL classification

D64: Altruism • Philanthropy • Intergenerational Transfers D01: Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles H30: General H41: Public Goods C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 488 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-013-9379-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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