[ Article ]
Seoul Journal of Economics - Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 87-98
Abbreviation: SJE
ISSN: 1225-0279 (Print)
Print publication date 28 Feb 2011
Received 28 Jul 2010 Revised 11 Aug 2010 Accepted 18 Aug 2010
The Spite Dilemma Experiment in Korea
Youngsub Chun ; Jeongbin Kim ; Tatsuyoshi Saijo
Corresponding Author, Professor, Department of Economics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-746, Korea, Tel: +82-2-880-6382, Fax: 82-2-886-4231 (ychun@snu.ac.kr)
Graduate Student, Department of Economics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-746, Korea, Tel: +82-2-880-6359 (jbdavid@snu.ac.kr)
Professor, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, Japan, and CASSEL, UCLA, USA, Tel: +81-6-6879-8582 (saijo@iser.osaka-u.ac.jp)
Funding Information ▼ National Research Foundation of Korea KRF-2009-342-B00011
JEL Classification: C91, H41, D70

This paper investigates a choice behavior of Korean subjects for the provision of public goods using the voluntary contribution mechanism in Saijo and Nakamura (1995). Together with the data from Saijo and Nakamura (1995) and Saijo et al. (2007), we conclude that whereas Japanese subjects are more likely to behave spitefully, Korean and Chinese subjects are more likely to act cooperatively. We also analyze the behavior of Korean subjects after being categorized by department. Subjects from the economics department follow a pattern of a contribution not much different from the theoretical expectation, and subjects from the college of social sciences show a similar pattern. The subjects who act spitefully are from the department of agricultural economics.