{"title":"Altruism in governance: Insights from randomized training for Pakistan's junior ministers","authors":"Sultan Mehmood , Shaheen Naseer , Daniel L. Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103317","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Randomizing different schools of thought in training altruism finds that training junior deputy ministers in the utility of empathy renders at least a 0.4 standard deviation increase in altruism. Treated ministers increased their perspective-taking: blood donations doubled, but only when blood banks requested their exact blood type. Perspective-taking in strategic dilemmas improved. Field measures such as orphanage visits and volunteering in impoverished schools also increased, as did their test scores in teamwork assessments in policy scenarios. Overall, our results underscore that the utility of empathy can be a parsimonious foundation for the formation of prosociality, even impacting the behavior of adults in the field.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48418,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Development Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438782400066X","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Randomizing different schools of thought in training altruism finds that training junior deputy ministers in the utility of empathy renders at least a 0.4 standard deviation increase in altruism. Treated ministers increased their perspective-taking: blood donations doubled, but only when blood banks requested their exact blood type. Perspective-taking in strategic dilemmas improved. Field measures such as orphanage visits and volunteering in impoverished schools also increased, as did their test scores in teamwork assessments in policy scenarios. Overall, our results underscore that the utility of empathy can be a parsimonious foundation for the formation of prosociality, even impacting the behavior of adults in the field.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Development Economics publishes papers relating to all aspects of economic development - from immediate policy concerns to structural problems of underdevelopment. The emphasis is on quantitative or analytical work, which is relevant as well as intellectually stimulating.