{"title":"幼儿竞争意愿与分配偏好:中国学童的实验研究","authors":"Ming Dai , Chi Cui , Tianming Ren , Liu Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112620","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment to examine the relationship between distributional preferences and willingness to compete with 197 Chinese children aged from 9 to 12 years old. Using a real-effort task to elicit competitive choice and a modified dictator game to estimate selfishness-fairness and efficiency-equality tradeoffs via a CES utility framework, we find that children with a strong fairness focus are significantly more likely to choose competitive schemes. Efficiency orientation is positively associated with the competitive choice, and this relationship is moderated by gender. Our findings provide novel evidence on the early emergence of economically relevant preferences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"256 ","pages":"Article 112620"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Willingness to compete and distributional preferences at early ages: an experimental study of Chinese schoolchildren\",\"authors\":\"Ming Dai , Chi Cui , Tianming Ren , Liu Liu\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112620\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><div>We conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment to examine the relationship between distributional preferences and willingness to compete with 197 Chinese children aged from 9 to 12 years old. Using a real-effort task to elicit competitive choice and a modified dictator game to estimate selfishness-fairness and efficiency-equality tradeoffs via a CES utility framework, we find that children with a strong fairness focus are significantly more likely to choose competitive schemes. Efficiency orientation is positively associated with the competitive choice, and this relationship is moderated by gender. Our findings provide novel evidence on the early emergence of economically relevant preferences.</div></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":11468,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Economics Letters\",\"volume\":\"256 \",\"pages\":\"Article 112620\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.8000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-09-16\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Economics Letters\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"96\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525004574\",\"RegionNum\":4,\"RegionCategory\":\"经济学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"ECONOMICS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economics Letters","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525004574","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
Willingness to compete and distributional preferences at early ages: an experimental study of Chinese schoolchildren
We conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment to examine the relationship between distributional preferences and willingness to compete with 197 Chinese children aged from 9 to 12 years old. Using a real-effort task to elicit competitive choice and a modified dictator game to estimate selfishness-fairness and efficiency-equality tradeoffs via a CES utility framework, we find that children with a strong fairness focus are significantly more likely to choose competitive schemes. Efficiency orientation is positively associated with the competitive choice, and this relationship is moderated by gender. Our findings provide novel evidence on the early emergence of economically relevant preferences.
期刊介绍:
Many economists today are concerned by the proliferation of journals and the concomitant labyrinth of research to be conquered in order to reach the specific information they require. To combat this tendency, Economics Letters has been conceived and designed outside the realm of the traditional economics journal. As a Letters Journal, it consists of concise communications (letters) that provide a means of rapid and efficient dissemination of new results, models and methods in all fields of economic research.