Publications

23 Dec 2006
News

Strategic Corporate Altruism

Article

Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs About Others' Altruism

By: Rafael Di Tella, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Andres Babino and Mariano Sigman

We present results from a “corruption game” (a dictator game modified so that recipients can take a side payment in exchange for accepting a reduction in the overall size of the pie). Dictators (silently) treated to be able to take more of the recipient’s tokens, took... View Details

Keywords: Convenient Beliefs; Cognitive Dissonance; Values and Beliefs; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking

2010
Working Paper

Quality Provision, Expected Firm Altruism and Brand Extensions

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper studies quality choice in a model where consumers expect firms to act altruistically. It is shown that, under plausible assumptions regarding this altruism and the reaction of consumers to firms that demonstrate insufficient altruism, existing firms (or... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Product Development; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Quality; Mathematical Methods

June 2008
Article

Minimally Acceptable Altruism and the Ultimatum Game

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

I suppose that people react with anger when others show themselves not to be minimally altruistic. With heterogeneous agents, this can account for the experimental results of ultimatum and dictator games. Moreover, it can account for the surprisingly large fraction of... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Game Theory; Mathematical Methods

19 Jul 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity are Linked

Keywords: by Julio J. Rotemberg

13 Dec 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity Are Linked

Keywords: Service

June 2014
Article

Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity Are Linked

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper presents a model in which anonymous charitable donations are rationalized by two human tendencies drawn from the psychology literature. The first is people's disproportionate disposition to help those they agree with, while the second is the dependence of... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Attitudes; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

In this paper, we propose a neurocomputational model of altruistic choice and test it using behavioral and fMRI data from a task in which subjects make choices between real monetary prizes for themselves and another. Our model captures key patterns of choice,... View Details

2011
Working Paper

Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity Are Linked

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper presents a model in which anonymous charitable donations are rationalized by two human tendencies drawn from the psychology literature. The first is people's disproportionate disposition to help those they agree with while the second is the dependence of... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Mathematical Methods; Attitudes; Interests; Perception; Wealth and Poverty

August 1976
Article

A Model of Economic Growth With Altruism Between Generations

By: Elon Kohlberg

Keywords: Economics; Growth and Development; Relationships

26 Jan 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs about Others

Keywords: by Rafael Di Tella & Ricardo Pérez-Truglia

2010
Working Paper

Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs about Others

By: Rafael Di Tella and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

In this paper we present the results from a "corruption game" (a dictator game modified so that the second player can accept a side payment that reduces the overall size of the pie). Dictators (silently) treated to have the possibility of taking a larger proportion of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Fairness; Values and Beliefs; Game Theory; Personal Characteristics

2002
Working Paper

Endogenous Altruism in Buyer-Seller Relations and Its Implications for Vertical Integration

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

Article

Public Goods and Posterity: An Empirical Test of Intergenerational Altruism

By: Arthur C. Brooks

2016
Working Paper

Gender Differences in Altruism: Responses to a Natural Disaster

By: Matthew Lilley and Robert Slonim

High-profile disasters can cause large spikes in philanthropy and volunteerism. By providing temporary positive shocks to the altruism of donors, these natural experiments help identify heterogeneity in the distributions of the latent altruism which motivates donors.... View Details

Keywords: Altruism; Charitable Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Gender; Behavior

SSRN

29 Oct 2012
News

Private equity guru's mission to show big business can do altruism

Keywords: Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Finance

Article

Anger and Regulation

By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra

We study a model in which agents experience anger when they see a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for the welfare of its clients (i.e., altruism) making high profits. Regulation can increase welfare, for example, through fines (even with no changes in... View Details

Keywords: Altruism; Populism; Public Relations; Profit; Consumer Behavior; Perception; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

March 24, 2020
Article

Delayed Negative Effects of Prosocial Spending on Happiness

By: Armin Falk and Thomas Graeber

Does prosocial behavior promote happiness? We test this longstanding hypothesis in a behavioral experiment that extends the scope of previous research. In our Saving a Life paradigm, every participant either saved one human life in expectation by triggering a targeted... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior; Altruism; Happiness; Well-being; Spending; Behavior

December 2018
Article

Some Elements of Peronist Beliefs and Tastes

By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra

We study the beliefs and values of Peronism. Instead of a comprehensive approach, we focus on three elements. First, we study beliefs and values about the economic system present in Peron’s speeches during the period 1943–1955. Second, given that these beliefs are... View Details

Keywords: Populism; Altruism; Exploitation; Economic Systems; Values and Beliefs; Argentina