Income inequality and cooperative propensities in developing economies
| Autor: | Daniel Kwabena Twerefou, Stephan Billinger, Wakeel Atanda Isola, Stephen Mark Rosenbaum |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Economics and Econometrics
Economic growth Gini coefficient Dictator Game Income Inequality 050204 development studies 05 social sciences Measures of national income and output General Social Sciences Public Goods Game Personal income Dictator game Income inequality metrics Economic inequality Income distribution 0502 economics and business Public goods game Economics Demographic economics 050207 economics Developing Countries Meta-Analysis |
| Zdroj: | Rosenbaum, S M, Billinger, S, Twerefou, D K & Isola, W A 2016, ' Income inequality and cooperative propensities in developing economies : Summarizing the preliminary experimental evidence ', International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 43, no. 12, pp. 1460-1480 . https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-04-2015-0109 |
| ISSN: | 0306-8293 |
| DOI: | 10.1108/ijse-04-2015-0109 |
| Popis: | PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of income inequality on cooperative propensities, and thus the ability of individuals to resolve collective action dilemmas.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a meta-study of 32 developing country lab experiments correlating cooperative behaviour with prevailing Gini coefficients. Furthermore, the paper conducts standard dictator- and public goods game (PGG) experiments with culturally and demographically similar subject pools in two West African countries characterized by high and persistent variation in national income inequality.FindingsThe meta-study findings of a significant negative relationship between income inequality and contribution levels in the PGG are corroborated by the own laboratory experimental findings that participants in more unequal Nigeria are significantly less altruistic and exhibit significantly lower propensities to cooperate than their more egalitarian Ghanaian counterparts. Moreover, the latter findings are robust when controlling for personal income levels.Practical implicationsThe findings have nontrivial implications for collective action theorists and practitioners seeking to elicit tacit cooperation in developing countries.Originality/valueThe major contributions of this paper are the novel meta-analysis and the first attempt to examine the influence of personal income levels on cooperative behaviour in societies characterized by differential levels of income inequality. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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