Social Distance Matters in Dictator Games: Evidence from 11 Mexican Villages

We examine the impact of social distance in dictator game giving. The study is conducted in a field setting with high stakes (two days’ wages). The sample is a representative sample from eleven low-income Mexican villages. Subjects make multiple dictator decisions simultaneously, in a comparative dictator game. We show the relationship between social distance and giving using several family members, a member of the same village, and a stranger from a different village. Dictator giving shows substantial variation across recipient types and varies directly with social distance. We find higher giving towards family members than towards community members and strangers. Furthermore, our results indicate that giving to community members and to strangers is not different. In light of our results, it is important to consider the impact of social distance on inter- and intra-household transfers in policy interventions that alleviate poverty, e.g., conditional transfers.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Games

• Publication date

  2018-10-01

• Fields of study

  Sociology, Computer Science, Economics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/g9040077
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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