ICES Seminar in Experimental Economics and Game Theory
Institutions Affect Preferences: The Value of Autonomy Under Liberal and Authoritarian Regimes
Friday, October 11, 2024 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EDT
Vernon Smith Hall (formerly Metropolitan Building), 5183
The ICES Seminar in Experimental Economics and Game Theory of the Fall 2024 semester will feature:
Santa Fe Institute
Institutions Affect Preferences: The Value of Autonomy Under
Liberal and Authoritarian Regimes
Abstract
Do liberal societies cultivate and sustain the social norms and other preferences required to perpetuate their basic institutions in the long run? To explore the dynamic stability of liberalism as a culture-institutions coevolutionary process, we measure the value of personal autonomy and aversion to being controlled by others, among East Germans raised under Communist rule and East Germans raised in liberal Germany. Consistent with a positive response to our motivating question, in behavioral experiments we find that those raised in greater freedom adopted more pro-personal-autonomy preferences, a result unlikely to reflect age effects (based on evidence from West German cohorts).
For more information about the Seminar Series, please visit the Seminar Schedule homepage.
