Generosity and social distance in dictator game field experiments with and without a face

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dictator game field experiments with and without a face

By

Sosina Bezu and Stein Holden School of Economics and Business Norwegian University of Life Sciences

www.steinholden.com

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NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES

Introduction

 The dictator game may be the simplest tool for

investigating generosity (Dufwenberg and Muren 2006)

 There are mixed evidences on the gender differences and effects of social distance on generosity (Eckel and

Grossman 1998; Dufwenberg and Muren 2006)

– Could be due to variations in methods and framing effects

 Do findings in lab experiments in the West generalize to poor people in developing countries?

– Contexts where women have a much weaker social position

– Family networks may be more important in such contexts and affect the extent of generosity and interdependence of preferences

Generosity and social distance in dictator game field experiments with and without a face

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UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES

Theoretical model

rosity and social distance in dictator game field nts with and without a face

   

i i

,

j j i

g g

i

v X x

U U x

d



  

   

 



Building on Fehr and Schmidt (2005): Taking into account social preferences and interdependent preferences:



Individual and interpersonal characteristics of the person ( )



Marginal utility effect on the other party,



Social distance ( d ⁾



Gender-specific preferences (g )



j

 

j i

v X  x

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Hypotheses (1)

 a) Family members are more likely to receive positive amounts/receive larger amounts in dictator games than anonymous villagers from the same village (effect of social distance)

 b) Generous family members (spouses) are more likely to get positive amounts (and receive larger amounts) than less

generous family members (spouses) (interdependent preferences)

 c) Persons who are more generous towards anonymous

villagers are also likely to be more generous towards their own family members and vice versa (social preferences)

 d) Exposure to generous family members contributes to

generous behavior towards anonymous persons (responsive social preferences)

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Hypotheses (2)

 e) Women are more generous to their husbands and anonymous villagers (have stronger social preferences) than men are.

 f) Spouses that themselves selected each other through voluntary marriage contracts (love marriage) are more generous towards each other in dictator games than spouses that were married through involuntary or enforced marriages

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Sampling and data

 A sample of 600 households in 17 villages in Southern Ethiopia surveyed in 2007 and 2012 to investigate

impacts of a land tenure reform aiming to strengthen household tenure security and women’s land rights through joint land certification of husbands and wives

 Social experiments: Dictator games in 2012

– With husbands and wives in monogamous households:

385 households

– With husbands and wives in polygamous households: 90 households

– With one other family member in remaining households

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Experimental design, 1

 Experiment took 1 day in each village

 Designed to prevent communication between households and household members during the experiment

– Separate play room and two waiting rooms/places – Household couples were called one at the time

– Coin toss (1) to identify a “winner” to play first, the loser had to wait in the other waiting room till all “winners”

had played

– The winner was given 40 EB and two stated preference questions for willingness to share with the waiting family member/spouse and with an anonymous person in the sample of households in the village

– Coin toss (2) to determine whom to share with of the two

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Experimental design, 2

 First player receives her/his money and amount given to family/anonymous person is put in an envelope

 Player is asked to hide the money, go home an not talk to anybody about the game or what was won

 Same procedure for all pairs

 Losers are called one by one in the same order

 Are asked the same “what if” stated preference (hypothetical) questions about what they would allocate to spouse/family member and anonymous person

 They are given the envelope that either comes from their

spouse or anonymous person with an amount topped up with 10 EB

 They are asked to hide the envelope, and go home without talking to anybody

DETTE ER TITTELEN PÅ PRESENTASJONEN

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Example of location for field experiments

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Example of game environment

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Another “field lab” location

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NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES DETTE ER TITTELEN PÅ PRESENTASJONEN

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Allocation to spouse by husbands and wives

0204060

0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40

Husbands Wives

Percent rosity and social distance in dictator game field nts with and without a face

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Allocation to anonymous villager

020406080

0 10 20 30 0 10 20 30

Husbands Wives

Percent

How much money allocated, EB

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Mean allocations by gender and receiver

Allocation to spouse Allocation to anonymous villager Probability of

non-zero allocation

Average amount allocated

Probability of non-zero

allocation

Average amount allocated Husbands Mean 0.850 16.816 0.291 2.940

St. error 0.018 0.462 0.023 0.283

N 380 380 385 385

Wives Mean 0.766 14.408 0.255 2.455

St. error 0.022 0.448 0.022 0.251

N 380 380 385 385

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Validity of within-household experiments?

 A unitary household model would

invalidate the experiments as households would share the cash after the game

anyway

 We assessed the extent of sharing of cash through separate questions to the spouses about their ability to mobilize cash for an urgent need and the extent to which they could obtain this cash from their spouse

 The results follow:

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Ability to mobilize cash and extent of help from spouse

Wives’

cash mobili- zation

Get cash from hus- band

If cash from

husband, how

much

Husbands’

cash mobili- zation

Get cash from wife

If cash from wife, how much

Mean, EB 491.64 0.20 145.93 1219.85 0.02 325.00 Median,

EB

200 0 100 500 0 150

St. error 118.00 0.02 17.49 185.60 0.01 150.42

N 366 367 75 352 359 6

Indicates clearly limited pooling of cash among

spouses

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Generosity and interdependent preferences, linear probability models with village fixed effects

Wife gives to husband,

dummy

Husband gives to

wife, dummy

Wife gives to anonymous,

dummy

Husband gives to anonymous,

dummy Real game dummy 0.031 0.076** -0.024 -0.042

(0.040) (0.030) (0.040) (0.050)

Received positive amount 0.312**** 0.018 from husband, dummy (0.060) (0.060) Received positive amount 0.207**** 0.083

from wife, dummy (0.040) (0.060)

Giver to anonymous, 0.219**** 0.162****

dummy (0.050) (0.040)

Giver to spouse, dummy 0.257**** 0.311****

(0.050) (0.070) Constant 0.425**** 0.609**** 0.058 -0.016

(0.060) (0.040) (0.070) (0.070)

Prob > chi2 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

R-squared 0.128 0.137 0.068 0.075

Number of observations 380 380 385 385

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Wives’ allocation to anonymous villager vs. zero or non-zero allocation to spouse

050100

0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20

0 1

Percent

How much money allocated by wife to anonymous

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Husbands’ allocation to anonymous villager by zero or non-zero allocation to spouse

050100

0 10 20 30 0 10 20 30

0 1

Percent

How much money allocated by husband to anonymous

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Allocation by wives to husbands by zero or non- zero amount given to anonymous villager

020406080

0 10 20 30 0 10 20 30

0 1

Percent

How much money allocated by wives to husband

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Allocation by husbands to wives by zero or non- zero amount given to anonymous villager

020406080

0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40

0 1

Percent

How much money allocated by husband to wife

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Allocation by wives to husbands by zero or non- zero amounts received from husbands

020406080

0 10 20 30 0 10 20 30

0 1

Percent rosity and social distance in dictator game field nts with and without a face

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Allocation by husbands to wives by zero or non- zero amount received from wife

020406080

0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40

0 1

Percent

How much money allocated by hysband to wife

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Correspondence of stated marriage type by spouses

Marriage type: females’

responses Marriage type:

males’ responses Parental arrange ment

Parental and bride agreement

Love marriage

Wife ex-

change

Kidnap- ping marriage

Total

Parental arrangement

60 7 11 1 4 83

Parental and bride

agreement 14 81 7 1 3 106

Love marriage 11 12 132 0 11 166

Wife exchange 0 1 2 5 0 8

Kidnapping marriage 1 1 2 0 18 22

Total 86 102 154 7 36 385

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Models with wider sample, incl. polygamous hhs and other hh members than the spouse

Prob. of non-zero allocation Non-zero amounts

allocated

Linear probability models Truncated tobit models Wives Husbands Wives Husbands

Dummy for real game, -0.018 0.023 -1.541*** -0.573

Allocation for whom: Baseline=Allocation for spouse

Son or daughter 0.115 -0.009 -2.478 0.888

Mother or father 0.153 . -1.104 .

Other relative 0.322**** 0.432 -2.442 0.211

Wife 2-4 (polygamous hhs) -0.215**** -0.020 -7.125**** -2.521****

Anonymous person -0.492**** -0.558**** -9.251**** -9.290****

Type of marriage: Baseline=Parental arrangement

Parental and bride agreement -0.053 -0.013 -1.678** -1.904**

Love marriage -0.041 0.020 -1.522** -1.449*

Wife exchange -0.003 -0.105 -0.337 1.883

Kidnapping marriage -0.083 -0.148* -3.911**** -1.540

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Summing up: Hypothesis testing/Conclusions 1

 Hypothesis a) that family members are more likely to receive positive amounts/receive larger amounts in dictator games than anonymous villagers from the same village (effect of social

distance); cannot be rejected;

 Hypothesis b) that generous family members (spouses) are more likely to get positive amounts than less generous family members (spouses) (interdependent preferences), cannot be rejected;

 Hypothesis c) that persons who are more generous towards anonymous villagers are also likely to be more generous

towards their own family members and vice versa (social preferences); cannot be rejected;

 Hypothesis d) that exposure to generous family members

contributes to generous behavior towards anonymous persons (responsive social preferences), was rejected;

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Summing up: Hypothesis testing/Conclusions 2

 Hypothesis e) that women are more generous to their husbands and anonymous villagers (have stronger social preferences) than men are; was rejected;

 Hypothesis f) that spouses that themselves selected each other through voluntary marriage contracts (love marriage) are more generous towards each other in dictator games than spouses that were married through involuntary or enforced marriages;

was partly rejected.

 Wives married through love marriages and through parental and bride agreement were less generous than wives married through parental arranged marriages.

 Wives married through kidnapping marriages were less

generous towards their husbands, in line with the hypothesis.

Generosity and social distance in dictator game field experiments with and without a face

dictator game field experiments with and without a face

Introduction

Theoretical model

   

,

v X x

U U x

d



  

   

 

Building on Fehr and Schmidt (2005): Taking into account social preferences and interdependent preferences:

Individual and interpersonal characteristics of the person ( )

Marginal utility effect on the other party,

Social distance ( d )

Gender-specific preferences (g )



 

v X  x

Hypotheses (1)

Hypotheses (2)

Sampling and data

Experimental design, 1

Experimental design, 2

Example of location for field experiments

Example of game environment

Another “field lab” location

Allocation to spouse by husbands and wives

Allocation to anonymous villager

Mean allocations by gender and receiver

Validity of within-household experiments?

 A unitary household model would

invalidate the experiments as households would share the cash after the game

anyway

 We assessed the extent of sharing of cash through separate questions to the spouses about their ability to mobilize cash for an urgent need and the extent to which they could obtain this cash from their spouse

 The results follow:

Ability to mobilize cash and extent of help from spouse

Indicates clearly limited pooling of cash among

spouses

Generosity and interdependent preferences, linear probability models with village fixed effects

Wives’ allocation to anonymous villager vs. zero or non-zero allocation to spouse

Husbands’ allocation to anonymous villager by zero or non-zero allocation to spouse

Allocation by wives to husbands by zero or non- zero amount given to anonymous villager

Allocation by husbands to wives by zero or non- zero amount given to anonymous villager

Allocation by wives to husbands by zero or non- zero amounts received from husbands

Allocation by husbands to wives by zero or non- zero amount received from wife

Correspondence of stated marriage type by spouses

Models with wider sample, incl. polygamous hhs and other hh members than the spouse

Summing up: Hypothesis testing/Conclusions 1

Summing up: Hypothesis testing/Conclusions 2

Social distance ( d ⁾