When induced to behave altruistically, are you going to be more or less pro-social afterwards? In this FEEM working paper, Giovanna D’Adda, Valerio Capraro and Massimo Tavoni  find out using online experiments with economic games.

“How persistent is altruism, and what is the best way to promote altruistic behaviour? This paper seeks to answer this question using a large online experiment with more than 3000 people. We show that traditional policy instruments do a better job than ‘nudges’ in inducing altruism and in maintaining it over time.”

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Suggested citation: d’Adda, G., V. Capraro, M. Tavoni, (2015), ‘The not so Gentle Push: Behavioral Spillovers and Policy Instruments’, Nota di Lavoro 108.2015, Milan, Italy: Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei