"Regional differences in social preferences and beliefs –Evidence from an interactive online experiment in Russia“

Heike Hennig-Schmidt and Gari Walkowitz gave a presentation at specialized conferences in Germany

Heike Hennig-Schmidt at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the German Association for Experimental Economic Research in Magdeburg, Germany (September 22 -24, 2021) and Gari Walkowitz at the 2021 Annual Online Conference of the German Economic Association (September 26 -29, 2021) presented the results of their research.

Abstract

Social preferences are shaped by ideas, beliefs and values that people acquire from observation and interaction with other members of their own social group. Learning from peers can lead to stable social norms because people socially learn what is appropriate, and what is undesirable. The local environment may also induce adopting stereotypes from local peers about other regions in the country. Studying interregional heterogeneity is important as national cohesiveness as well as interregional transactions are important factors for regional economic growth. Russia, the largest country in the world, offers a particularly good environment for exploring social preferences and addressing the question of interregional heterogeneity that we investigate by means of an Ultimatum game experiment in the three Russian cities Moscow, Samara and Tomsk. We found strong effects in behavior and beliefs with regard to Moscow yet minor differences between the other two cities.