Experimental Economics and Culture Research in Experimental Economics Series, Vol. 20

Culture has been referred to as a shared frame, the lens through which group members make sense of the world. It has been robustly linked to economic outcomes on the macro level and is also directly linked to decision-making: In recent years, experimental and behavioral economists have found evidence that culture impacts behavior in in games and impacts value orientation, trust, fairness, and cooperation. Research on experimental economics and culture is still in its early stages and part of the challenge is methodological and conceptual: how to measure culture and how to define the level at which individuals share a culture. In the coming years, this research will help delineate where the results from our current experiments apply. For example, do current results speak specifically to WEIRD societies (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democracies) or do they say something more fundamental about human nature across time, experience, and geography? With increasing migration and globalization, subject pools may become more culturally diverse and cultural questions become more important for researchers using the experimental method to understand. The contributions in this volume are both conceptual and experimental. The earlier chapters discuss new approaches to the measurement of culture, and how to conceptualize and define values and beliefs and the groups that share them. The later experimental chapters contribute to the growing body of literature that documents how cultural differences in social and economic behavior.

Introduction to Experimental Economics and Culture; Anna Gunnthorsdottir and Douglas A. Norton Chapter 1. Why Use Qualitative Methods to Study Culture in Economic Life?; Arielle John and Virgil Henry Storr Chapter 2. A Note on Qualitative Methods in Experimental Economics; Douglas A. Norton Chapter 3. Culture as a Configuration of Values: An Archetypal Perspective; David F. Midgley, Sunil Venaik and Demetris Christopoulos Chapter 4. Cultural Values and Behavior in Dictator, Ultimatum and Trust Games: An Experimental Study; Sun-Ki Chai, Dolgorsuren Dorj and Katerina Sherstyuk Chapter 5. When Income Depends on Performance and Luck: The Effects of Culture and Information on Giving; Pedro Rey-Biel, Roman Sheremeta and Neslihan Uler Chapter 6. Tastes for Desert and Placation: A Reference Point-dependent Model of Social Preferences; Daniel L. Chen Chapter 7. Group Identity in Intermediated Interactions: Lessons from a Trust Game with Delegation in South Africa; Hanjo Hamann and Nicky Nicholls

Anna Gunnthorsdottir is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Iceland and the Department of Finance, Accounting and Statistics at Vienna University of Economics and Business. Her research in experimental game theory focuses on cooperation, competition, and models of social stratification. Doug Norton is a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Hilton Center at Florida State University. His research uses experimental and econometric methods to investigate questions related to charity, public assistance, religion, and culture. With Mark Isaac, he is the Co-Series Editor for Research in Experimental Economics.