Do Institutions Affect Social Preferences? Evidence from Divided Korea

•We report experiments of social preferences with North Korean refugees and South Korean students.•We find a sharp disparity in distributional preferences between NK refugees and SK subjects.•NK refugees behave in a less self-interested manner and support the market economy and democracy less than S...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of Comparative Economics Jg. 45; H. 4; S. 865 - 888
Hauptverfasser: Kim, Byung-Yeon, Choi, Syngjoo, Lee, Jungmin, Lee, Sokbae, Choi, Kyunghui
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Elsevier Inc 01.12.2017
Schlagworte:
Democracy
Experiment
Institutions
Market economy
Social preferences
Experiment
D03
Democracy
C93
Institutions
C92
Market economy
Social preferences
P20
ISSN:0147-5967, 1095-7227
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Zusammenfassung:•We report experiments of social preferences with North Korean refugees and South Korean students.•We find a sharp disparity in distributional preferences between NK refugees and SK subjects.•NK refugees behave in a less self-interested manner and support the market economy and democracy less than SK subjects.•This finding of disparity in distributional preferences are robust against sample selection and potential confounding factors such as income differences. The division of Korea is a historic social experiment that randomly assigned ex ante identical individuals into two different economic and political institutions. About 70 years after the division, we sample Koreans who were born and raised in the two different parts of Korea to study whether institutions affect social preferences. We find that those from North Korea behave in a less self-interested manner and support the market economy and democracy less than those from South Korea. A follow-up study shows that social preferences did not change considerably in two years. We check robustness against sample selection and potential confounding factors such as income differences. Our findings indicate that preferences are rooted in institutions.
ISSN:0147-5967
1095-7227
DOI:10.1016/j.jce.2016.08.004