Christian Thoni (Lausanne)

This week's seminar will be given by Christian Thoni from the University of Lausanne. "Survey Response and Observed Behavior: Emancipative and secular values predict cooperation, protection of property, and pro-social behaviour".

Abstract: Cooperation among strangers is vital for the functioning of modern societies. It is frequently argued that moral values provide a major source of cooperative behavior, yet there is little empirical evidence on the link between moral values and cooperative behavior. To fill this gap, we invited the respondents of the sixth wave of the World Values Survey in Germany to participate in an online experiment. The experiment consisted of a series of incentivized games and allowed us to study the link between moral values and cooperative behavior. The evidence boils down to three findings. While emancipative values motivate higher common pool contributions and higher donations to charitable organizations, secular values inspire more productive and less protective investments.