Global Evidence on Economic Preferences*

By Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas J. Dohmen, Benjamin Enke, David Huffman, Uwe Sunde. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2018

1,442 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper studies the global variation in economic preferences. For this purpose, we present the Global Preference Survey (GPS), an experimentally validated survey dataset of time preference, risk preference, positive and negative reciprocity, altruism, and trust from 80,000 individuals in 76 countries. The data reveal substantial heterogeneity in preferences across countries, but even larger within-country heterogeneity. Across individuals, preferences vary with age, gender, and cognitive ability, yet these relationships appear partly country specific. At the country level, the data reveal correlations between preferences and bio-geographic and cultural variables such as agricultural suitability, language structure, and religion. Variation in preferences is also correlated with economic outcomes and behaviors. Within countries and subnational regions, preferences are linked to individual savings decisions, labor market choices, and prosocial behaviors. Across countries, preferences vary with aggregate outcomes ranging from per capita income, to entrepreneurial activities, to the frequency of armed conflicts.

Subfields: Demography, Safety Research, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c30f712dbfcdc46a624021eef6b7da2092dc8486

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Demography

In Safety Research

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Gender inequality in COVID-19 times: evidence from UK prolific participants (2020, background): “…gap in COVID-19-related health and economic concerns, we have also included the following controls variables: a time preference measure (1–10), from Falk et al. (2016, 2018) —see footnote 15— and three measures of risky behaviors—obesity indicator (0–1), number of alcoholic drinks (0–10), and…”
The Preference Survey Module: A Validated Instrument for Measuring Risk, Time, and Social Preferences (2016, methodology): “The resulting data set is described in Falk et al. (2018).”
Kinship Systems, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Culture (2018, neutral): “…is part of the literature on cultural variation in economic preferences and attitudes (Guiso et al., 2009; Voigtländer and Voth, 2012; Chen, 2013; Falk et al., 2016; Dohmen et al., 2016; Desmet et al., Forthcoming), in particular papers that highlight the endogeneity or evolution of cultural…”
IQ, Expectations, and Choice (2019, positive): “better than low-IQ men or might be more patient (Falk et al. (2018)).”
Online Appendix (2020, neutral): “shown to correlate with incentivized measures and is commonly used in the literature (Falk et al. 2018).”
Socioeconomic Status and Inequalities in Children’s IQ and Economic Preferences (2017, neutral): “For instance, aggregate patience relates to the level of economic development of countries and regions, risk preferences predict labor protection policies and social preferences are associated with the frequency of armed conflicts (Hübner and Vannoorenberghe, 2015; Dohmen et al., 2018; Falk et al., ”
Are women more generous than men? A meta-analysis (2021, positive): “We find the same effect size as Falk et al. (2018) in the standard DG.”