The Role of Expectations and Gender in Altruism

University of Michigan professors Mary L. Rigdon and Adam Seth Levine have a new paper that studies whether there is a systematic gender difference in giving behavior:

Most experimental economics research has found that women are more generous than men. Evidence also suggests that gender differences depend upon the price of giving: males are more altruistic when the price of giving is low, while females are more altruistic when the price of giving is high. However, in the modified dictator game, a key variable in one’s decision to give is what one expects to receive. Systematic differences in those expectations may well contribute to systematic differences in altruistic behavior. We show that these expectations drive an important and widely reported result. When these expectations are homegrown, we replicate the finding. When expectations of receiving are uniform rather than homegrown, gender differences in price sensitivity disappear: males and females give equal amounts. This suggests that it is gender differences in expectations about others’ giving — not differences in tastes for fairness — that explains the previous results.

Milton Friedman on the responsibility to the poor

The video below is from a 1978 debate between Milton Friedman and members of the student body at Stanford University. In one segment, Dr. Friedman receives a question on the government’s responsibility to the poor. He calmly replies that the government holds no responsibility over poverty, only people do.

Agitated murmurs from the audience can be heard as a student shouts, “Have you ever been on welfare…or poor,” implying that a wealthy economist, such as Milton Friedman, could not empathize with poor people and thus could not prescribe a proper remedy.

Milton Friedman quickly replies, “Of course…but that is all irrelevant. Is there one of you who is going to say you don’t want a doctor to treat you for cancer unless he himself has had cancer?”