Donations, risk attitudes and time preferences: A study on altruism in primary school children

Arbeitspapier

We study with a sample of 1,070 primary school children, aged seven to eleven years,how altruism in a donation experiment is related to children’s risk attitudes and intertemporalchoices. Examining such a relationship is motivated by theories of reciprocalaltruism that provide a cornerstone to understand human social behavior. We find thathigher risk tolerance and patience in intertemporal choice increase, in general, the levelof donations, albeit the effects are non-linear. We confirm earlier results that altruismincreases with age during childhood and that girls are more altruistic than boys. Havingolder brothers makes subjects less altruistic.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ifo Working Paper ; No. 177

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
• Subject: Altruism ; risk attitudes ; intertemporal choices ; experiment ; children

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Angerer, Silvia ; Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela ; Lergetporer, Philipp ; Sutter, Matthias
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/96668
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET