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Khadjavi, M. and Lange, A. (2015). Doing good or doing harm: experimental evidence on giving and taking in public good games Experimental Economics, 18(3):432--441.


  • Journal
    Experimental Economics

We replicate Andreoni (Quarterly Journal of Economics 110: 1–21, 1995){\textquoteright}s finding that agents behave more selfishly when taking from a public account than when giving to a public good. Based on a neutral language setting we add new insights into motivations to give or take in a linear public good setting: we find that Andreoni{\textquoteright}s result is partly driven by the complete elimination of giving options in the taking frame. However, a pure extension of the action space into the taking domain also leads to a significant increase in selfish behavior.