Other-regarding preferences: Egalitarian warm glow, empathy, and group size

An abundance of experimental evidence in recent years has demonstrated the existence of other-regarding behavior in the laboratory. In a series of dictator experiments, we investigate the effects of warm-glow egalitarianism, empathy, and their interaction with group size. We find that the random-payoff method may distort incentives in favor of egalitarian behavior by allowing for path-dependent egalitarian warm glow to outweigh monetary payoffs. Though we find some evidence for empathy, it nevertheless appears that a group size of six or more neutralizes most other-regarding behavior in many-recipient dictator games.