Willingness to compete and distributional preferences at early ages: an experimental study of Chinese schoolchildren

We conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment to examine the relationship between distributional preferences and willingness to compete with 197 Chinese children aged from 9 to 12 years old. Using a real-effort task to elicit competitive choice and a modified dictator game to estimate selfishness-fairn...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Dai, Ming (VerfasserIn) , Cui, Chi (VerfasserIn) , Ren, Tianming (VerfasserIn) , Liu, Liu (VerfasserIn)
Dokumenttyp: Article (Journal)
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: 16 September 2025
In: Economics letters
Year: 2025, Jahrgang: 256, Pages: 1-3
ISSN:0165-1765
DOI:10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112620
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112620
Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525004574
Volltext
Verfasserangaben:Ming Dai, Chi Cui, Tianming Ren, Liu Liu
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:We conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment to examine the relationship between distributional preferences and willingness to compete with 197 Chinese children aged from 9 to 12 years old. Using a real-effort task to elicit competitive choice and a modified dictator game to estimate selfishness-fairness and efficiency-equality tradeoffs via a CES utility framework, we find that children with a strong fairness focus are significantly more likely to choose competitive schemes. Efficiency orientation is positively associated with the competitive choice, and this relationship is moderated by gender. Our findings provide novel evidence on the early emergence of economically relevant preferences.
Beschreibung:Gesehen am 27.01.2026
Beschreibung:Online Resource
ISSN:0165-1765
DOI:10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112620