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Recession Experiences During Early Adulthood Shape Prosocial Attitudes Later in Life

Bietenbeck, Jan LU ; Sunde, Uwe and Thiemann, Petra LU (2023) In Working Papers
Abstract
This paper explores whether the experience of a severe recession during early adulthood shapes individuals’ prosocial attitudes. The analysis uses survey responses to experimentally validated questions that measure prosocial attitudes for approximately 65,000 respondents in 75 countries. The identification approach exploits variation in recession experiences across 78 different birth cohorts. We find that exposure to a recession during early adulthood is associated with lower levels of prosociality later in life. The effect only emerges for experiences during impressionable years (age 18-25), mainly affects prosocial attitudes among men, and is orthogonal to the effect of experiences with democracy.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Prosocial attitudes, impressionable years, experience effects, cohort effects, economic shocks, D91, E30, E71
in
Working Papers
issue
2023:9
pages
43 pages
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
c6928dd2-d017-48a8-868f-60e741f57072
date added to LUP
2023-08-31 12:58:54
date last changed
2024-03-08 12:22:57
@misc{c6928dd2-d017-48a8-868f-60e741f57072,
  abstract     = {{This paper explores whether the experience of a severe recession during early adulthood shapes individuals’ prosocial attitudes. The analysis uses survey responses to experimentally validated questions that measure prosocial attitudes for approximately 65,000 respondents in 75 countries. The identification approach exploits variation in recession experiences across 78 different birth cohorts. We find that exposure to a recession during early adulthood is associated with lower levels of prosociality later in life. The effect only emerges for experiences during impressionable years (age 18-25), mainly affects prosocial attitudes among men, and is orthogonal to the effect of experiences with democracy.}},
  author       = {{Bietenbeck, Jan and Sunde, Uwe and Thiemann, Petra}},
  keywords     = {{Prosocial attitudes; impressionable years; experience effects; cohort effects; economic shocks; D91; E30; E71}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{08}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2023:9}},
  series       = {{Working Papers}},
  title        = {{Recession Experiences During Early Adulthood Shape Prosocial Attitudes Later in Life}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/173489617/WP23_9.pdf}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}