@techreport{Alger2006Altruism, abstract = {Recognizing that
individualism, or weak family ties, may be favorable to economic
development, we ask how family ties interact with climate to
determine individual behavior and whether there is reason to
believe that the strength of family ties evolves differently in
different climates. For this purpose, we develop a simple model
of the interaction between two individuals who are more or less
altruistic towards each other. Each individual exerts effort to
produce a consumption good under uncertainty. Outputs are
observed and each individual chooses how much, if any, of his or
her output to share with the other. We analyze how the
equilibrium outcome depends on altruism and climate for ex ante
identical individuals. We also consider (a) coerced altruism,
that is, situations where a social norm dictates how output be
shared, (b) the effects of insurance markets, and (c) the role
of institutional quality. The evolutionary robustness of
altruism is analyzed and we study