February 2009
The sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 took the lives of 68 percent of the people aboard. Who survived? It was women and children who had a higher probability of being saved, not men. Likewise, people traveling in first class had a better chance of survival than those in second and third class. British passengers were more likely to perish than members of other nations. This extreme event represents a rare case of a well-documented life and death situation where social norms were enforced. This paper shows that economic analysis can account for human behavior in such situations.
Keywords: decision under pressure, tragic events and disasters, survival, quasi-natural experiment, altruism
JEL Classification: [D630] Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement [D640] Altruism [D710] Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations [D810] Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
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Bruno S. Frey bsfrey@iew.uzh.ch David A. Savage david.savage@qut.edu.au Benno Torgler benno.torgler@qut.edu.au
