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From the lab to the field: envelopes, dictators and manners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Jan Stoop
Jan Stoop*
Affiliation:
Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 Rotterdam, DR, The Netherlands
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper reports results of a natural field experiment on the dictator game where subjects are unaware that they are participating in an experiment. Three other experiments explore, step by step, how laboratory behavior of students relates to field behavior of a general population. In all experiments, subjects display an equally high amount of pro-social behavior, whether they are students or not, participate in a laboratory or not, or are aware of their participating in an experiment or not. This paper shows that there are settings where laboratory behavior of students is predictive for field behavior of a general population.

Keywords

AltruismDictator gameNatural field experimentExternal validityMisdirected letter technique

JEL classification

D63: Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement D64: Altruism • Philanthropy • Intergenerational Transfers C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C93: Field Experiments C70: General
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 304 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-013-9368-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

I would like to thank Aurélien Baillon, Han Bleichrodt, Enrico Diecidue, Dennie van Dolder, Ido Erev, Emir Kamenica, John List, Steven Levitt, Wieland Müller, Charles Noussair, Rogier Potters van Loon, Drazen Prelec, Kirsten Rohde, Ingrid Rohde, three anonymous referees and participants from seminars at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the University of Chicago for their useful comments. Special thanks to Jan Potters and Peter Wakker for some significant contributions. I would like to thank Thibault van Heeswijk and Bart Stoop for their excellent research assistance. Finally, I would like to thank ERIM for financial support.

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