Dictating the risk – experimental evidence on giving in risky environments

We study if and how social preferences extend to risky environments. By providing experimental evidence on different versions of “dictator games” with risky outcomes, we establish that social preferences of players who give in standard dictator games cannot be described solely by concerns over ex post distributions. Instead, dictators take the distribution of ex ante chances to win into account: the more money decision-makers transfer in the standard dictator game, the more likely they are to equalise to payoff chances under risk. Risk to the recipient does, however, generally decrease the transferred amount. Ultimately, preferences that are exclusively based on ex post or on ex ante comparisons cannot generate the observed behavioural patterns and a utility function with a combination of these concerns may best describe behaviour.