FAIRNESS-BASED ALTRUISM AND REDISTRIBUTION: AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

The focus of this paper is on altruism and coordination among agents with different income levels. A special form of altruism (fairness based or ethical altruism) is investigated by means of experiments. The definition of altruism used here follows from A. Sen’s concept of obligation, i.e. behaviour that produces advantage for someone whose welfare is not important at all for the agent’s well-being. In this sense, the paper investigates altruism without reciprocity. A second hypothesis investigated is that the extent of ethical altruism is influenced by gender and by income differences within the population.