Accomplishment-Based Renewal: Experimental Studies of Time Inconsistent Preferences for Risk Fairness and Charitable Giving

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This is an Accomplishment Based Renewal award based on the results from Dr. Andreoni’s previous NSF Award, SES 1658952. He will continue his research on how ideas of fairness, justice and moral responsibility affect economic decisions, including decisions about charitable giving. The project will develop new theories and test the theory with lab and field decision experiments. The new research will focus on ideas of fairness and justice over long time spans. He will use decision making experiments to see how individuals make decisions in situations where one individual makes a decision today that harms future participants. This includes work designed to test whether or not decisions about intergenerational resource allocations are consistent across different kinds of situations. The work will also incorporate tests of time preference. If one person creates an economic harm, perhaps his or her inheritors face a situation where society agrees that the economic harm has increased over the years (e.g., accruing interest). The alternative possibility is that the harm dissipates over time. The PI also wants to use the lab experiments as one component in an online curriculum that can be used in high school and college classes that consider economic efficiency, justice, and equity. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.