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Strategic ignorance and procedural fairness preferences

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  • von Siemens, Ferdinand A.

Abstract

This paper shows that procedural fairness concerns might be a possible explanation for strategic ignorance, that is, that some people avoid information on how their behavior might hurt others. Decision makers with procedural fairness preferences suffer disutility from inequality in ex-ante expected payoffs. Such preferences lead to strategic ignorance if decision makers are in some sense focused on extremes: they generally dislike inequality in expected payoffs, but care little about changes in intermediate inequality. Importantly, this property does not imply a particular curvature of the loss function measuring the suffering from inequality. The theoretical possibility result suggests that more empirical research on strategic ignorance might be warranted.

Suggested Citation

  • von Siemens, Ferdinand A., 2024. "Strategic ignorance and procedural fairness preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:242:y:2024:i:c:s0165176524003331
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111849
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Strategic ignorance; Procedural fairness; Self-signaling; Decision under uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

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