Lagerlöf, J (2004) Effiency-Enhancing Signalling in the Samaritan's Dilemma. Economic Journal, 114 (492).
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Suppose an altruistic person, A, is willing to transfer resources to a second person, B, if B comes upon hard times. If B anticipates that A will act in this manner, B will save too little from both agents’ point of view. This is the Samaritan's dilemma. This paper shows that the undersaving result is mitigated if we relax the standard assumption of complete information, because if A is uncertain about how big B's need for support is, B will have an incentive to signal that he is in great need by saving more than he otherwise would have done.
This is a Published version This version's date is: 01/2004 This item is peer reviewed
https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/d1947f59-a2fc-d0b6-d9d9-a4a6e315f704/1/
Deposited by () on 23-Dec-2009 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 23-Dec-2009