In most laboratory experiments concerning prosocial behavior subjects are fully informed how their decision influences the payoff of other players. Outside the laboratory, for instance when voting for a policy reform proposal, individuals typically have to decide without such detailed knowledge. To assess the effect of information asymmetries on prosocial behavior, we conduct a laboratory experiment with a simple non-strategic interaction. A dictator has only limited knowledge about the benefits his prosocial action generates for a recipient. We observe subjects with heterogenous social preferences, in particular inequalityaverse and efficiency-concerned individuals. While under symmetric information only individuals with the same type of preferences transfer, under asymmetric information different types transfer at the same time. As a consequence and the main finding of our experiment, uninformed dictators behave more prosocially than informed dictators. In an ex-post analysis of our experiment we also find that the differences in behavior under symmetric information are mostly driven by gender: women tend to be more inequality-averse, men tend to be more efficiency-concerned. Yet, both transfer under asymmetric information.
Estimating the CAP greening effect by machine learning techniques: A big data ex post analysis