利他行为的经济学研究新进展

Research Progress of Economics on Altruism

人们的利他行为是存在且普遍的,对提高效用具有显著作用。研究利他行为不仅具有一定的学术价值,还对政策制定有指导意义。梳理近年来与利他行为动机、理论和实证相关的研究发现:动机上,行为经济学者直接利用被试在现实生活中的社交网络来探讨人们利他行为的动机,区分了普遍利他动机、针对特定人群的定向利他动机和未来互惠动机。理论上,基于复杂社会网络的研究打破了简单模型的局限,加深了对利他行为的理解。实证上,学者们在慈善捐赠、公共品提供、社会规范、利他行为人等方面对利他行为做了大量分析。综合而言,后续研究可从利他行为与社会网络动态变化的关系、实证与理论结合、中国情景下的探讨、解释现实问题等方面拓展。

Altruistic behavior is common, and it is valuable with regard to utility. Research on altruistic behavior is not only academically important, but also serves to policy making. This paper surveys the researches on altruistic motives, and both theoretical and empirical ones on altruistic behavior in recent years. In terms of motivation, behavioral economists directly use the subjects’ social networks in real life to explore people’s altruistic motives, and have made important findings, such as distinguishing between baseline altruism and directed altruism, distinguishing between directed altruism and reciprocity. In theory, research based on social networks breaks the limitations of simple models and find new results, which alter our understanding of altruistic behavior quite deeply. Empirically, scholars have done a lot of analysis on altruistic behavior in terms of charitable donations, public goods provision, social norms, and people who are altruistic.