Altruistic Capital
American Economic Review · 2017 · Volume 107 · Issue 5
Abstract
To understand altruistic behavior, we must understand the process through which altruism develops and is shaped by the agents' own choices and exogenous factors. We introduce the concept of altruistic capital, which grows with effort devoted to altruistic acts and facilitates future altruism. We illustrate its potential use in the context of banking and conclude by showing that returns to altruistic effort shape the agent's choices and are shaped by external events such as the financial crisis.
Keywords
Consumer Economics: Theory, Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement, Altruism, Philanthropy, Intergenerational Transfers
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