Global Evidence on Economic Preferences
Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, Benjamin Enke, David Huffman, Uwe Sunde
Summary
Using the Global Preference Survey, a dataset of risk, time, social, and trust preferences measured for about 80,000 individuals across 76 countries, the authors document how fundamental economic preferences vary across populations. They show systematic relationships between these preferences and individual behaviors as well as aggregate national outcomes. The paper also explores how geographic, cultural, and historical factors correlate with the global distribution of preferences.
Key findings
- Introduces and validates the Global Preference Survey covering ~80,000 people in 76 countries representing roughly 90% of world population.
- Preferences vary substantially both across and within countries and correlate with individual outcomes and aggregate economic measures.
- Variation in preferences relates systematically to geographic, cultural, and historical characteristics of populations.
Subjects & keywords
Cite this paper
Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, Benjamin Enke, David Huffman, & Uwe Sunde (2018). Global Evidence on Economic Preferences. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy013
@article{falk2018global,
author = {Armin Falk and Anke Becker and Thomas Dohmen and Benjamin Enke and David Huffman and Uwe Sunde},
title = {Global Evidence on Economic Preferences},
journal = {The Quarterly Journal of Economics},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1093/qje/qjy013},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy013}
}