The Effect of Own and Recipient Economic Status on the Dictator Game Giving of Adolescents : Experimental Evidence from India

We conduct dictator games in our artefactual field experiment with 11th and 12th grade students in New Delhi, India. We construct an economic status index based on household ownership of assets for our subjects. Using cut-offs from this index, we randomly match dictators to recipients who are poorer, richer, similar in economic status or those whose relative economic status is undisclosed. We find that own wealth does not significantly predict average dictator giving. However, richer individuals are more likely to give their full endowment to the recipient. On the other hand, richer individuals are also more likely to give nothing and have a lower likelihood of giving egalitarian offers. Turning to relative wealth differences between dictator and recipient, we find that independent of own economic status, our adolescent dictators give more to individuals who are lower economic status as compared to individuals who are of a similar or higher economic status. Lastly, we find that dictators give more when information on relative economic status of the recipient is disclosed