A. GARY ANDERSON
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
CENTER FOR SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE ORGANIZATIONS
RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES
Professor Rachel T. A. Croson
Professor Rachel T. A. Croson
Associate Professor of Operation and Information Management
Wharton School of Management, University of Pennsylvania
Theories of Commitment, Altruism and Reciprocity: Evidence from
Linear Public Goods Games
Theories of commitment, altruism and reciprocity have all been
invoked to explain and describe observed behavior in public goods
and social dilemma situations. In particular, commitment theories
have been used to explain behaviors like water conservation and
voting. Theories of altruism and applied in explanation of
contributions to charities intergenerational transfers and bequests.
And theories of reciprocity have been invoked to explain gift
exchange and labor market decisions. This paper describes a set of
experiments which distinguish between these competing theories by
testing their comparative statics predictions in a linear public
goods setting. Results provide strong support for reciprocity
theories over either theories of commitment or of altruism.
Friday, March 2, 2001, 11 am-12:30 pm
Room 021, Anderson Hall, UC Riverside
Copies of the
paper to be presented are available at
http://www.goldmark.org/livia/misc/croson.rtf or from Prof.
Lívia Markóczy,
Livia.Markoczy@ucr.edu, Anderson Hall, Rm 221, 787-3908
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On 26 Feb 2001, 10:09.