Authors: Dawes, Christopher T. (Department of Politics) Johannesson, Magnus (Stockholm School of Economics), Lindqvist, Erik (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)), Loewen, Peter (Department of Political Science), Östling, Robert (Institute for International Economic Studies), Bonde, Marianne, Priks, Frida
We test whether generosity is related to political preferences and partisanship in Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States using incentivized dictator games. The total sample consists of more than 5,000 respondents. We document that support for social spending and redistribution is positively correlated with generosity in all four countries. Further, we show that donors are more generous towards co-partisans in all countries, and that this effect is stronger among supporters of left-wing political parties. All results are robust to the inclusion to an extensive set of control variables, including income and education.
Interesting stuff Nick.
I have added it to my must read blog articles over the break
Talking about generosity, did anyone know that it is possible to watch, for free, all of the episodes in a wonderful science documentary series that aired on Norwegian television in 2010. There are 7 episodes in which researchers with different views on the nature versus nurture debate, respond to the other view.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask
I have only watched the first one, hopefully the rest are of a similar quality.
This is an interesting study. I am wondering about the concept of generosity here, and whether social justice might not be the underlying value instead.