Signaling Goodness

"As alternative explanations of public choice, neither narrow self-interest nor altruism works because of the free-rider problem involved in large group decisions. Signaling Goodness develops an alternative explanation - the theory of asymmetric "goodness" - that successfully predicts both political behavior as well as the behavior of charity, the traditional bastion of altruistic theorizing. The authors show, for example, that the main conflicting motivation is also a reputational return - imitating the behavior of one's close friends and associates to signal trustworthiness to them. They find that those who have the greatest returns to imitation are those least likely to use "goodness" signaling."--BOOK JACKET.