The appearance of homo rivalis: Social preferences and the nature of rent seeking

Benedikt Herrmann () and Henrik Orzen
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Benedikt Herrmann: University of Nottingham

No 2008-10, Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham

Abstract: While numerous experiments demonstrate how pro-sociality can influence economic decision-making, evidence on explicitly anti-social economic behavior has thus far been limited. In this paper we investigate the importance of spite in experimental rent-seeking contests. Although, as we show, existing evidence of excessive rent-seeking is in theory compatible with fairness considerations, our social preference elicitations reveal that subjects’ investments are driven by spite, not fairness or reciprocity. We also observe a striking disconnect between individuals’ revealed social preferences in our contest game and in a standard prisoner’s dilemma, rejecting the idea that there are consistent pro-social, selfish or anti-social “types”. Moreover, we find that cooperation and reciprocity rates drop substantially after subjects have been exposed to rent-seeking competition.

Keywords: Contests; Other-regarding preferences; Experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C9 D0 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-08
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (118)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:not:notcdx:2008-10

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