A Survey of Economic Theories and Field Evidence on Pro-Social Behavior

Standard economic theory predicts that public goods are often under-provided because individuals will free ride on the contributions of others since they cannot be excluded from using the public good. In reality, people free ride less often than is predicted by standard economic theory. People behave in a number of situations not according to narrow self-interest, but rather pro-socially. As a result of these conclusions, economists have turned to psychologists, who have studied pro-social behavior for quite a long time. Consequentially, a large number of economic theories have evolved to explain people's pro-social behavior and the variation in their respective behavior. This paper, published in an MIT Press title, surveys economic theories of pro-social behavior.