To understand why investors hold socially responsible mutual funds, we link administrative data to survey responses and behavior in incentivized experiments. We find that both social preferences and social signaling explain socially responsible investment (SRI) decisions. Financial motives play less of a role. Socially responsible investors in our sample expect to earn lower returns on SRI funds than on conventional funds and pay higher management fees. This suggests that investors are willing to forgo financial performance in order to invest in accordance with their social preferences.
Around the world, increases in wealth have produced an unintended consequence: a rising sense of time scarcity. We provide evidence that using money to buy time can provide a buffer against this time famine, thereby promoting happiness. Using large, diverse samples from the United States, Canada, Denmark, and The Netherlands (n = 6,271), we show that individuals who spend money on time-saving services report greater life satisfaction. A field experiment provides causal evidence that working adults report greater happiness after spending money on a timesaving purchase than on a material purchase. Together, these results suggest that using money to buy time can protect people from the detrimental effects of time pressure on life satisfaction. time | money | happiness | well-being I n recent decades, incomes have risen in many countries (1, 2), potentially exacerbating a new form of poverty: from Germany to Korea to the United States, people with higher incomes report greater time scarcity (3). Feelings of time stress are in turn linked to lower well-being, including reduced happiness, increased anxiety, and insomnia (4-6). Time stress is also a critical factor underlying rising rates of obesity: lacking time is a primary reason that people report failing to eat healthy foods or exercise regularly (7,8). In theory, rising incomes could offer a way out of the "time famine" of modern life (9), because wealth offers the opportunity to have more free time, such as by paying more to live closer to work. However, some evidence suggests that wealthier people spend more time engaging in stressful activities, such as shopping and commuting (10). Experimental research shows that simply leading people to feel that their time is economically valuable induces them to feel that they do not have enough of it (11).A great deal of attention has been devoted to reducing financial scarcity, but there is relatively little rigorous research examining how to reduce feelings of time scarcity, which in fact may offer a particularly difficult challenge given that time, unlike money, is inherently finite. Could allocating discretionary income to buy free time-such as by paying to delegate common household chores, like cleaning, shopping, and cooking-reduce the negative effects of the modern time famine, thereby promoting well-being? The growth of the sharing economy has made time-saving services increasingly accessible, but no empirical research has tested whether using such services enhances happiness.From our theoretical perspective, buying time should protect people from the negative impact of time stress on life satisfaction. This conceptualization draws on the social support literature, in which research on the "buffering hypothesis" has demonstrated that receiving social support can protect people from experiencing the negative consequences of stress (12). That is, the typical relationship between stress and reduced well-being is attenuated for individuals who are able to access social support (13-15). We suggest that buying time may ...
This paper studies conditions influencing the generosity of wealthy people. We conduct incentivized experiments with individuals who have at least €1 million in their bank account. The results show that millionaires are more generous toward low-income individuals in a giving situation when the other participant has no power, than in a strategic setting, where the other participant can punish unfair behavior. Moreover, the level of giving by millionaires is higher than in any other previous study. Our findings have important implications for charities and financial institutions that deal with wealthy individuals.philanthropy | donations | experimental economics | dictator game | ultimatum game
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.