Sophie Clot

Moral self-licencing and social dilemmas: an experimental analysis from a taking game in Madagascar

ABSTRACT This article explores whether previous good deeds may license antisocial behaviour, such as appropriating a social surplus for private benefits, in a developing country context, namely Madagascar. We design a two-step framed experiment, with one control treatment (a neutral task) and three test treatments (tasks enabling subjects to earn moral credits in three different ways), followed by a taking game in which subjects are given the opportunity to take an amount from a fund allocated to their University. On average, we find that participants in the three licencing conditions appropriate more than those in the control group and that further differences emerge according to the way the moral credits have been earned.

Are impatient farmers more risk-averse? Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in rural Uganda

ABSTRACT Based on data from a field-experiment in rural Uganda, we show that impatient farmers are more risk-averse than patient farmers. We relied on a simplified version of the Convex Time Budget (CTB) method to elicit farmers’ time preferences and on an independent method for eliciting their risk-preferences. We report two important findings. First, we show that our simplified CTB method applied to farmers from Uganda replicates the key findings of Andreoni and Sprenger’s lab experiments that involved student subjects. Second, we establish the existence of a negative correlation between risk tolerance and impatience, based on two independent measures.