Motivations behind prosocial behavior: Evidence from the Philippines

What are the motivations behind seemingly prosocial behavior? Does altruism play a key role especially after a disaster? We address these questions by combining two datasets from a Philippine village affected by strong floods in 2012: Satellite-based natural experimental data on damage caused by a natural hazard; and lab-in-the-field experimental data collected by incentivized dictator games. Lab experiments were conducted twice in 2014 and 2018, enabling us to explore temporal as well as medium-term impacts of a disaster. We build a simple theory that allows us to interpret empirical findings using data from a dictator game. Three main findings emerge from our analysis. First, on average, senders in our dictator game transfer more money to a person affected by disaster losses than do those who face no loss. This finding empirically supports the model of pure altruism, especially in the aftermath of a disaster. However, this pattern decays over time, reflecting erosion of altruism in non-disaster environments. Second, the results on own damages are consistent with the theoretical prediction of pure altruism as well as warm-glow giving. Comparisons of the results using data from two waves in 2014 and 2018, show overall erosion of altruism and warm-glow. Finally, as a byproduct, our estimation result is consistent with the prior literature, specifically the zero prudence coefficient or the negligible third derivative (NTD) in utility function under the additive separability assumption.