IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/euvwdp/310.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who helps whom? Risk taking and solidarity in a virtual world experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Lübbe, Ingmar
  • Bolle, Friedel

Abstract

Most incomes underlie some risk, i.e. ex ante they can be regarded as a lottery ticket. In every society, the lucky winners of this lottery compensate unlucky losers (unemployed workers or bankrupt entrepreneurs) privately and/or by public insurances. Do voluntary solidarity payments depend on the amount and origin of risk of winners and losers? We differentiate between people with riskless incomes (civil servants), with low risk incomes (workers), and with high risk incomes (entrepreneurs). Some of our subjects had no choice of their risk class (civil servants and some workers), some of them had the choice to be a worker or an entrepreneur. The main stylized results are: (i) Civil servants and lucky workers with and without a choice transfer similar shares of their income to unlucky workers, but (ii) discriminate against unlucky entrepreneurs. (iii) Lucky entrepreneurs give about the same share of their income to unlucky workers as lucky workers do and (iv) do not significantly discriminate. (v) The potential solidarity payments are not an incentive for taking higher risks.

Suggested Citation

  • Lübbe, Ingmar & Bolle, Friedel, 2011. "Who helps whom? Risk taking and solidarity in a virtual world experiment," Discussion Papers 310, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:euvwdp:310
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/54738/1/681325887.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Friedel Bolle & Yves Breitmoser & Jana Heimel & Claudia Vogel, 2012. "Multiple motives of pro-social behavior: evidence from the solidarity game," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 303-321, March.
    2. Alexander W. Cappelen & James Konow & Erik ?. S?rensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2013. "Just Luck: An Experimental Study of Risk-Taking and Fairness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1398-1413, June.
    3. Sascha Fullbrunn & Katharina Richwien & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2011. "Trust and Trustworthiness in Anonymous Virtual Worlds," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 48-63.
    4. Buchner, Susanne & Coricelli, Giorgio & Greiner, Ben, 2007. "Self-centered and other-regarding behavior in the solidarity game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 293-303, February.
    5. Friedel Bolle & Claudia Vogel, 2011. "Power comes with responsibility—or does it?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 459-470, September.
    6. Alexander W. Cappelen & Astri Drange Hole & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 818-827, June.
    7. Costard, Jano & Bolle, Friedel, 2011. "Solidarity, responsibility and group identity," Discussion Papers 309, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    8. Nadja Trhal & Ralf Radermacher, 2006. "Bad luck vs. self-inflicted neediness – An experimental investigation of gift giving in a solidarity game," Working Paper Series in Economics 28, University of Cologne, Department of Economics, revised 07 Mar 2008.
    9. Chesney, Thomas & Chuah, Swee-Hoon & Hoffmann, Robert, 2009. "Virtual world experimentation: An exploratory study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 618-635, October.
    10. Buitrago, Gelkha & Gueth, Werner & Levati, Maria Vittoria, 2009. "On the relation between impulses to help and causes of neediness: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 80-88, January.
    11. Selten, Reinhard & Ockenfels, Axel, 1998. "An experimental solidarity game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 517-539, March.
    12. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2010. "Responsibility for what? Fairness and individual responsibility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 429-441, April.
    13. Fiore, Stephen M. & Harrison, Glenn W. & Hughes, Charles E. & Rutstrm, E. Elisabet, 2009. "Virtual experiments and environmental policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 65-86, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Costard, Jano & Bolle, Friedel, 2011. "Solidarity, responsibility and group identity," Discussion Papers 309, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    2. Bolle, Friedel & Costard, Jano, 2013. "Who shows solidarity with the irresponsible?," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2013-308, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    3. Bolle, Friedel & Liepmann, Hannah & Vogel, Claudia, 2012. "How much social insurance do you want? An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1170-1181.
    4. Mimra, Wanda & Nemitz, Janina & Waibel, Christian, 2020. "Voluntary pooling of genetic risk: A health insurance experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 864-882.
    5. Lea Cassar & Arnd H. Klein, 2017. "A Matter of Perspective: How Experience Shapes Preferences for Redistribution," CESifo Working Paper Series 6302, CESifo.
    6. Renate Strobl & Conny Wunsch, 2021. "Risky choices and solidarity: disentangling different behavioural channels," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(4), pages 1185-1214, December.
    7. Falch, Ranveig, 2021. "How Do People Trade Off Resources Between Quick and Slow Learners?," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 5/2021, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    8. Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael, 2016. "Equity and bargaining power in ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 144-165.
    9. Tausch, Franziska & Potters, Jan & Riedl, Arno, 2013. "Preferences for redistribution and pensions. What can we learn from experiments?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 298-325, July.
    10. Sausgruber, Rupert & Sonntag, Axel & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2021. "Disincentives from redistribution: evidence on a dividend of democracy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    11. Renate Strobl & Conny Wunsch, 2017. "Does Voluntary Risk Taking Affect Solidarity? Experimental Evidence from Kenya," CESifo Working Paper Series 6578, CESifo.
    12. Vanessa Valero, 2022. "Redistribution and beliefs about the source of income inequality," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 876-901, June.
    13. Strobl, Renate & Wunsch, Conny, 2018. "Risky Choices and Solidarity: Why Experimental Design Matters," Working papers 2018/17, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    14. John Bone & Paolo Crosetto & John Hey & Carmen Pasca, 2021. "The Acceptability of Accountability," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 476-501, December.
    15. Francesco Farina & Stefania Ottone & Ferruccio Ponzano, 2019. "On the Collective Choice among Models of Social Protection: An Experimental Study," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-17, October.
    16. Jakiela, Pamela, 2015. "How fair shares compare: Experimental evidence from two cultures," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 40-54.
    17. Gürerk, Özgür & Bönsch, Andrea & Braun, Lucas & Grund, Christian & Harbring, Christine & Kittsteiner, Thomas & Staffeldt, Andreas, 2014. "Experimental Economics in Virtual Reality," MPRA Paper 62073, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Jan 2015.
    18. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W Cappelen & Kjell G Salvanes & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2017. "Fairness and family background," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(2), pages 117-131, May.
    19. João V. Ferreira & Erik Schokkaert & Benoît Tarroux, 2023. "How group deliberation affects individual distributional preferences: An experimental study," Working Papers 2301, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    20. Alexander Cappelen & Yiming Liu & Hedda Nielsen & Bertil Tungodden, 2024. "Fairness in a Society of Unequal Opportunities," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 506, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    solidarity; responsibility; risk taking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:euvwdp:310. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwffode.html .

    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.