We provide a preference framework for situations in which “intentions matter.” A behavioral type describes the individual’s observable characteristics and the individual’s personality. We define a canonical behavioral type space and provide a condition that identifies collections of behavioral types that are equivalent to components of the canonical type space. We also develop a reciprocity mod...

In two-person generosity games, the proposer’s agreement payoff is exogenously given, whereas that of the responder is endogenously determined by the proposer’s choice of the pie size. In three-person generosity games, equal agreement payoffs for two of the players are either exogenously excluded or imposed. We predict that the latter crowds out or at least weakens efficiency seeking. Our treat...

Does Generosity Beget Generosity? Alumni Giving and Undergraduate Financial Aid We investigate how undergraduates’ financial aid packages affect their subsequent donative behavior as alumni. The empirical work is based upon a rich set of micro data on alumni giving at an anonymous research university, which we call Anon U. We focus on three types of financial aid, scholarships, loans, and campu...

Previous experimental literature on reputation studies its effects in environments where they are often confounded with strategic behavior. This paper explores how information about the paired subject’s previous action affects one’s own behavior in a non-strategic environment of a dictator game. The experiment consists of two treatments in which dictators can give money to the paired player: on...

Prosocial actions often involve giving something that represents one’s essence, be it one’s name (e.g., signature), personal possessions, or body (e.g., blood donation). This research compares such ‘‘self-giving’’ to the giving of resources of comparable value that are less connected to one’s essence. We show in five studies that self-giving embeds givers with a sense of commitment and generosi...

In order to investigate and compare welfare states or specific programmes, scientists, opinion?makers politicians rely on indicators. As many of the concepts objects studied are somewhat abstract, these indicators can often only be approximations. comparative welfare?state research, scholars have suggested several approximating quantitatively measure generosity public provision, with a special ...

Interpersonal trust is a key component of cooperation, helping support the complex social networks found across societies. Trust typically involves two parties, one who trusts by taking on risk through investment in second party, can be trustworthy and produce mutual benefits. To date, developmental literature has focused primarily trustor, meaning we know little about ontogeny trustworthiness....