DP8019我们高估了社会偏好的作用吗?自我选择的学生样本的情况
社会偏好的研究已经从根本上改变了经济学家的思维方式对许多重要的经济和社会现象。然而,社会偏好的实证基础主要是基于实验与学生自我选择的参与者。This is potentially problematic as students participating in experiments may behave systematically diff erent than non-participating students or non-students. In this paper we empirically investigate whether laboratory experiments with student samples misrepresent the importance of social preferences. Our first study shows that students who exhibit stronger prosocial inclinations in an unrelated field donation are not more likely to participate in experiments. This suggests that self-selection of more prosocial students into experiments is not a major issue. Our second study compares behavior of students and the general population in a trust experiment. We find very similar behavioral patterns for the two groups. If anything, the level of reciprocation seems higher among non-students implying an even greater importance of social preferences than assumed from student samples.
