You Owe Me
American Economic Review
vol. 107,
no. 2, February 2017
(pp. 493-526)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
In business and politics, gifts are often aimed at influencing the recipient at the expense of third parties. In an experimental study, which removes informational and incentive confounds, subjects strongly respond to small gifts even though they understand the gift giver's intention. Our findings question existing models of social preferences. They point to anthropological and sociological theories about gifts creating an obligation to reciprocate. We capture these effects in a simple extension of existing models. We show that common policy responses (disclosure, size limits) may be ineffective, consistent with our model. Financial incentives are effective but can backfire.Citation
Malmendier, Ulrike, and Klaus M. Schmidt. 2017. "You Owe Me." American Economic Review, 107 (2): 493-526. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20140890Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C92 Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Group Behavior
- D62 Externalities
- D64 Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification