Identification, signaling and exploitation of social preferences: An experimental analysis

Vu, Thi Thanh Tam (2019) Identification, signaling and exploitation of social preferences: An experimental analysis. PhD thesis, University of Trento.

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Abstract

The Doctoral dissertation centers on social preferences. Three experimental studies address the identification methods and the implications of distributional preference types and pro-sociality on economic decision-making. In Chapter 1, the identification of social preference types using distributive choices is discussed. A thorough review shows that the two main approaches - parametric and non-parametric- have been productively used but produced inconsistent results in previous studies. The experiment in this Chapter is designed to examine the categorical agreement between the two methods: whether they classify the same subject into the same type. Chapter 2 presents a laboratory experiment investigating whether people strategically signal a certain type of social preferences. I consider four different distributional types and compare the distribution of these types under two settings: with and without strategic reasoning. In Chapter 3, I report an experimental study on the strategic exploitation of others' pro-sociality for own's benefit. This study is conducted within the principal-agent framework and aims to test whether employers make use of workers' pro-social motivation, offering a compensation scheme which is tailored to workers' pro-sociality.

Item Type:Doctoral Thesis (PhD)
Doctoral School:Economics and Management (within the School in Social Sciences, till the a.y. 2010-11)
PhD Cycle:31
Subjects:Area 13 - Scienze economiche e statistiche > SECS-P/06 ECONOMIA APPLICATA
Repository Staff approval on:04 Jun 2019 09:29

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