How prosocial motives shape market exchange: experimental evidence from street vending

Abstract

Markets are often seen as impersonal mechanisms of exchange, yet many real-world transactions are deeply social. This paper examines how prosocial motives interact with economic exchange and how this affects market outcomes. I study these questions in the context of street vending—a ubiquitous informal market in developing countries—combining multiple experiments with detailed observational data and surveys. Partnering with vendors in a field experiment, I show that buyers are twice as likely to purchase from children as from adults s Show more