Social Preferences over Utilities

We propose a model of social preferences defined over the utilities of individuals. This requires the identification of "positive" and "normative" evaluations by individuals over the well-being of others. We design a multi-stage experiment in which we elicit subjects' risk and social preferences, together with their positive and normative evaluations of the risk and distributional concerns of others. As for the risk dimension, our results indicate that our experimental subjects are risk averse, believe that others are less risk averse than them, and that others should be more risk-averse than themselves. As for the social dimension, subjects exhibit spiteful preferences, believe that other are less spiteful than them, and that others should hold altruistic motives with regard to others.