Ricerc@Sapienza

Social preferences affect virtually any aspect of economic behavior, with massive macroeconomic outcomes. However, they are arduous to measure and it is difficult to ascertain whether they are inherited from ancestors or if they result from a life long learning process. This project aims at shedding light on the roots and the outcomes of two of the most economically relevant preferences, regarding prosocial attitudes and support for redistribution.

1) As previous studies suggest that the evolution of social preferences is a path dependent process that develops over centuries, we search for exogenous sources of variation rooted in the deep past. This is done by exploiting the unique historical experiment offered by the exodus of the Huguenots in the XVIIth century from France to Britain.

2) We then test the assumption that social preferences continuously change as a result of a life long learning process by exploring the role of natural disasters, which exogenously shock the benefits of cooperation and redistribution. We, then, assess how fast Internet is changing social preferences by exploiting exogenous discontinuities in broadband penetration in the UK.

4) To test the reactiveness of social preferences to exogenous stimuli, we assess how they respond to manipulated shocks in a laboratory experiment using a time pressure treatment. This part of the project deals with the role of fast and intuitive vs. slow and deliberative thinking in driving prosocial behaviour.

5) As public investments in R&D also reveal a shared concern for the welfare of future generations, which are generally associated to time preferences, we explore the impact of a public policy programme enacted in Italy at the end of 2012 for supporting young innovative R&D oriented firms. As international trade has been found to react to cooperative attitudes and trust between pairs of nations, we empirically explore the determinants of the sensitivity of exports.