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Measuring altruism in a public goods experiment: a comparison of U.S. and Czech subjects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Lisa R. Anderson ,
Francis J. DiTraglia  and
Jeffrey R. Gerlach
Lisa R. Anderson*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, USA
Francis J. DiTraglia
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Jeffrey R. Gerlach
Affiliation:
SKK Graduate School of Business, SungKyunKwan University, Seoul, Korea
*
e-mail: lisa.anderson@wm.edu
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Abstract

This paper compares contributions to an experimental public good across the United States and Czech Republic, using a design that allows us to distinguish between altruism and decision error. Czech subjects contribute significantly more than American subjects, and further analysis reveals that this result cannot be attributed to the confounding effects of gender or decision error. Instead, preferences for altruism appear to differ across groups: Czechs are more altruistic than Americans and men are more altruistic than women.

Keywords

Public goodsExperimentCzech RepublicNationalityGender

JEL classification

H41: Public Goods C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , September 2011 , pp. 426 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi: 10.1007/s10683-011-9274-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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