As an Economy Becomes More Developed, Do People Become Less Altruistic?

Inter-household private transfers are one of the main informal insurance mechanisms that prevalently implemented in developing countries. Unfortunately, most of the literatures investigates the private transfer motives at static perspectives. Therefore, this paper took advantage to investigate the private transfers motives in Thailand over the past three decades in order to examine any changing patterns of transfer motives. The empirical results from econometric methods indicated that as the economy in Thailand continues to develop, altruism remains dominant for private inter-household motives in Thailand and persists over time, not only in rural but also urban areas of the country.