AbstractRisk attitudes determine decision making by individuals. Theoretically, heterogeneity in risk attitudes also affects household behaviour, increasing or decreasing marital instability, depending on whether households benefit primarily from sharing public goods or risk. Using a nationally representative sample with repeated measurements of risk attitudes, this paper shows that intrahousehold heterogeneity in risk attitudes is an economically and statistically significant predictor of future marital instability. Consistent with models of public good sharing, preference heterogeneity is associated with less public good sharing. Furthermore, risk attitudes converge within stable households over time. These findings highlight the empirical relevance of risk attitudes in explaining household behaviour.
The goal of this article is threefold. First, it aims at understanding the dynamic positions of foundations (institutional proximities and purposes, approaches and roles) relative to church, state, market, and civil society. The institutional factors behind the transformation of the small and heterogeneous set of foundations existing in the country in the late 1980s, under scattered and restrictive regimes, into a relatively sizeable and influential sector of formally homogeneous nonprofits are explored. Second, it approaches the conceptualization of foundations in Spain and describes the recent evolution and current configuration of the sector with 2009 (year of the first foundation census) and 2014 (latest estimate available) as reference dates—illustrating them in comparative perspective. Third, its goal is to shed light on their advantages and disadvantages for relevant stakeholders in the context of evolving institutional proximities, foundation models, and prevailing typologies. In order to structure the discussion, the purposes, approaches, roles, benefits, and drawbacks of Spanish foundations will be compared with the German and U.S. anchors as depicted by Anheier and Hammack in this issue.
Moral behavior is more prevalent when individuals cannot easily distort their beliefs self-servingly. Do individuals seek to limit or enable their ability to distort beliefs? How do these choices affect behavior? Experiments with over 9,000 participants show preferences are heterogeneous—30 percent of participants prefer to limit belief distortion, while over 40 percent prefer to enable it, even if costly. A random assignment mechanism reveals that being assigned to the preferred environment is necessary for curbing or enabling self-serving behavior. Third parties can anticipate these effects, suggesting some sophistication about the cognitive constraints to belief distortion. (JEL C91, D82, D83, D91)
Mistakes and overconfidence in detecting lies could help lies spread. Participants in our experiments observe videos in which senders either tell the truth or lie, and are incentivized to distinguish between them. We find that participants fail to detect lies, but are overconfident about their ability to do so. We use these findings to study the determinants of sharing and its effect on lie detection, finding that even when incentivized to share truthful videos, participants are more likely to share lies. Moreover, the receivers are more likely to believe shared videos. Combined, the tendency to believe lies increases with sharing. (JEL C91, D83, D91, L82)
We study individual demand for COVID-19 antibody tests in an incentivized study on a representative sample of the US population. Almost 2,000 participants trade off obtaining an athome test kit against money. At prices close to zero, 80 percent of individuals want the test. However, this broad support of testing falls sharply with price. Demand decreases by 19 percentage points per $10 price increase. Demand for testing increases with factors related to its potential value, such as age, increased length and strength of protective immunity from antibodies, and greater uncertainty about having had the virus. Willingness to pay for antibody tests also depends on income, ethnicity and political views. Black respondents show significantly lower demand than white and Hispanic respondents, and Trump-supporters demonstrate significantly lower demand for testing. The results suggest that charging even moderate prices for antibody tests could widen health inequalities.
We study individual demand for COVID-19 antibody tests in an incentivized study on a representative sample of the US population. Almost 2,000 participants trade off obtaining an at-home test kit against money. At prices close to zero, 80 percent of individuals want the test. However, this broad support of testing falls sharply with price. Demand decreases by 19 percentage points per $10 price increase. Demand for testing increases with factors related to its potential value, such as age, increased length and strength of protective immunity from antibodies, and greater uncertainty about having had the virus. Willingness to pay for antibody tests also depends on income, ethnicity and political views. Trump-supporters demonstrate significantly lower willingness to pay for testing. Black respondents, even if critical of Trump's approach to the crisis, pay less for testing than white and Hispanic respondents. If policy makers want a broad take-up of testing, the results suggest that tests should be for free.
We study individual demand for COVID-19 antibody tests in an incentivized study on a representative sample of the US population. Almost 2,000 participants trade off obtaining an at home test kit against money. At prices close to zero, 80 percent of individuals want the test. However, this broad support of testing falls sharply with price. Demand decreases by 19 percentage points per $10 price increase. Demand for testing increases with factors related to its potential value, such as age, increased length and strength of protective immunity from antibodies, and greater uncertainty about having had the virus. Willingness to pay for antibody tests also depends on income, ethnicity and political views. Black respondents show significantly lower demand than white and Hispanic respondents, and Trump-supporters demonstrate significantly lower demand for testing. The results suggest that charging even moderate prices for antibody tests could widen health ...