Manipulating the source of the property and income effects, experimenters find that without social enforcement, respect for property is low; taking aversion grows when the property is legitimized by labor

Thou shalt not steal: Taking aversion with legal property claims. Marco Faillo, Matteo Rizzolli, Stephan Tontrup. Journal of Economic Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2018.08.009

Highlights
•    We test taking aversion using a dictator game with a symmetric action space.
•    We implement a double-blind anonymity protocol and establish clear property rights.
•    We manipulate the source of the property and income effects.
•    Without social enforcement, respect for property is low.
•    Taking aversion grows when the property is legitimized by labor.

Abstract: Do people have an innate respect for property? In the literature, there is controversy about whether human subjects are taking averse. We implemented a dictator game with a symmetric action space to address potential misconceptions and framing and demand effects that may be responsible for the contradictory findings. Misconceptions can occur as a result of unclear property rights, while framing and demand effects can occur if anonymity is not preserved. Our paper is the first to implement both a strict double-blind anonymity protocol and clear property rights. We established clear property claims by asking subjects in our legal treatment to bring their own property to the experiment. In the effort treatment, the experimenter transferred the property publicly to subjects after they completed a real effort task. Our data suggest that without social enforcement, respect for property is low. Yet, the taking rate significantly differs from the theoretically predicted maximum. Consistent with the Lockean theory of property, respect for property grows when the entitlement is legitimized by the labor the owner had to invest to acquire it.