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  5. Public Goods and Social Cooperation: Experiments
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Public Goods and Social Cooperation: Experiments

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (CST)

Grand Hyatt, Travis C
Hosted By: Econometric Society
  • Chair: Paul J. Feldman, Texas A&M University

Love or politics? Political views regarding the war in Ukraine in an online dating experiment

Anna Beloborodova
,
None

Abstract

How polarized is Russian society regarding the war in Ukraine? Political views have an impact on various behaviors, including relationship formation. In this paper I study the extent of polarization in the Russian society regrading the war in Ukraine by conducting a field experiment on a large Russian dating site and collecting data on more than 3,000 profile evaluations. The findings reveal sizable penalties for those who express pro-war or anti-war positions on their dating profiles, suggesting considerable levels of polarization in the Russian society regarding the war. Age of the online dating site users is the most divisive factor, as younger individuals are less likely to approach pro-war profiles but not anti-war profiles, while older individuals are less likely to respond positively to profiles indicating anti-war views but not pro-war views.

Disentangling Risk and Other-Regarding Preferences

Paul J. Feldman
,
Texas A&M University
Kristian Lopez-Vargas
,
University of California-Santa Cruz

Abstract

This paper investigates risk and other-regarding preferences within a framework that parallels Epstein-Zin’s. Our model can explain key behavioral patterns in the combined domain and is the first to disentangle elementary attitudes towards risk, altruism, social substitution, ex-ante inequality, and ex-post inequality. We parameterize the model and test its predictions using a laboratory experiment with four decision environments based on convex choice sets. Our findings are consistent with the model, showing that most subjects adjust their risk attitudes due to ex-post inequality concerns and exhibit ex-ante fairness-seeking behavior. Our structural analysis at the individual level allows us to characterize people’s heterogeneity of preferences over five fundamental dimensions.
JEL Classifications
  • C9 - Design of Experiments
  • H4 - Publicly Provided Goods