IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jopoec/v15y2002i4p715-736.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Private transfers with incomplete information: A contribution to the "altruism-exchange motivation for transfers" debate

Author

Listed:
  • Eli Feinerman

    (The Department of Agricultural Economics and Management, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 12, Rehovot 76100, Israel)

  • Edward J. Seiler

    (Bates White and Ballentine, LLC, 2001 K Street, Washington, DC 20005, USA)

Abstract

We examine the role of altruism in determining optimal transfers from a principal (a mother) to selfish agents (her children) in return for attention services. Transfer-attention contracts are studied in a setting in which informational asymmetries arise from the inability of a parent to determine the extent of her children's selfishness. We find a predominating exchange motive for transfers in the symmetric informational regime we study. However, both altruism and exchange are important motives under asymmetric information. We show that altruism facilitates transfer-attention exchange arrangements with certain trade partners under incomplete information, but diminishes trade with others.

Suggested Citation

  • Eli Feinerman & Edward J. Seiler, 2002. "Private transfers with incomplete information: A contribution to the "altruism-exchange motivation for transfers" debate," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 715-736.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:15:y:2002:i:4:p:715-736
    Note: Received: 19 November 2000/Accepted: 17 May 2001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00148/papers/2015004/20150715.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wolff, Francois-Charles & Laferrere, Anne, 2006. "Microeconomic models of family transfers," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 889-969, Elsevier.
    2. Diego Alberto Sandoval Herrera & María Fernanda Reyes Roa, 2012. "¿Por qué los migrantes envían remesas?: Repaso de las principales motivaciones microeconómicas," Borradores de Economia 10036, Banco de la Republica.
    3. Rydell, Ingrid, 2005. "Equity, Justice, Interdependence: Intergenerational Transfers and the Ageing Population," Arbetsrapport 2005:5, Institute for Futures Studies.
    4. B. Gabriela Mundaca, 2009. "Remittances, Financial Market Development, and Economic Growth: The Case of Latin America and the Caribbean," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 288-303, May.
    5. Jellal, Mohamed, 2009. "A Theory of Educational Inequality Family and Agency Costs," MPRA Paper 17434, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Ibrahim Sirkeci & Jeffrey H. Cohen & Dilip Ratha, 2012. "Migration and Remittances during the Global Financial Crisis and Beyond," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13092.
    7. Julie Zissimopoulos & Johanna Thunell & Stipica Mudrazija, 2020. "Parental Income and Wealth Loss and Transfers to Their Young Adult Children," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 316-331, June.
    8. Rapoport, Hillel & Docquier, Frederic, 2006. "The Economics of Migrants' Remittances," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 17, pages 1135-1198, Elsevier.
    9. Al-Mashat Rania & Billmeier Andreas, 2012. "Push or Pull? The Determinants of Remittances to Egypt," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 1-27, October.
    10. Jellal, Mohamed, 2014. "A theory of family education incentives and inequality," MPRA Paper 57913, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intergenerational transfers; mechanism design; altruism; exchange;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:15:y:2002:i:4:p:715-736. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.