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Free keywords:
Dictator Game, Uncertainty, Donation
JEL:
D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
JEL:
C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
JEL:
D03 - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
Abstract:
Donors may often not be sure whether a recipient really deserves their help. Does this uncertainty deter generosity? In an experiment we find that, to the contrary, under most specifications of uncertainty, dictators give more, compared with the donation the same dictator makes to a recipient they know to have the expected value of the endowment with certainty. They are particularly concerned about the possibility that a recipient leaves the lab with no payoff from the game.
