Revealed Altruism

This paper develops a nonparametric theory of preferences over one’s own and others’monetary payo¤s. We introduce “more altruistic than” (MAT), a partial ordering over preferences, and interpret it with known parametric models. We also introduce and illustrate “more generous than”(MGT), a partial ordering over opportunity sets. Several recent studies focus on two player extensive form games of complete information in which the …rst mover (FM) chooses a more or less generous opportunity set for the second mover (SM). Here reciprocity can be formalized as the assertion that anMGT choice by the FM will elicit MAT preferences in the SM. A further assertion is that the e¤ect on preferences is stronger for acts of commission by FM than for acts of omission. We state and prove propositions on the observable consequences of these assertions. Finally, empirical support for the propositions is found in existing data from investment games and from Stackelberg games and in new data from Stackelberg mini-games. J. C. Cox, Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 3992, Atlanta, GA 30302-3992, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. D. Friedman, Professor of Economics, 417 Building E2, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. V. Sadiraj, Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 3992, Atlanta, GA 30302-3992, USA. E-mail: [email protected].