IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/has/discpr/0109.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Experimental Analysis of the Ultimatum Game: The Role of Competing Motivations

Author

Listed:
  • Lorand Ambrus-Lakatos

    (Department of Political Science Central European University)

  • Tamas Meszerics

    (Department of Political Science Central European University)

Abstract

This paper forwards a new way of accounting for the experimental evidence related to the Ultimatum Game. We argue that players in this game have reasons to be both fair and self-interested, but the balance between these two considerations cannot be expressed in terms of a tradeoff. We test our thesis by perturbing the Ultimatum Game in a way that emphasizes the force of self-interest considerations; the evidence we collected provides support for our thesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Lorand Ambrus-Lakatos & Tamas Meszerics, 2001. "An Experimental Analysis of the Ultimatum Game: The Role of Competing Motivations," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0109, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:has:discpr:0109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.core.hu/file/download/mtdp/mtdp019osszes.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1986. "Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 285-300, October.
    3. A. Roth & I. Er’ev, 2010. "Learning in Extensive Form Games: Experimental Data and Simple Dynamic Models in the Intermediate Run," Levine's Working Paper Archive 387, David K. Levine.
    4. Cameron, Lisa A, 1999. "Raising the Stakes in the Ultimatum Game: Experimental Evidence from Indonesia," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(1), pages 47-59, January.
    5. Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "The Ultimatum Game," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 195-206, Fall.
    6. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    7. repec:fth:prinin:345 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Lisa Cameron, 1995. "Raising the Stakes in the Ultimatum Game: Experimental Evidence From Indonesia," Working Papers 724, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meszerics, Tamás & Ambrus-Lakatos, Loránd, 2003. "Az ultimátumjáték elemzéséhez [Towards an analysis of the ultimatum game]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 505-518.
    2. Rami Zwick & Xiao-Ping Chen, 1999. "What Price Fairness? A Bargaining Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(6), pages 804-823, June.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Armin Falk, 1999. "Wage Rigidity in a Competitive Incomplete Contract Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(1), pages 106-134, February.
    4. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    5. Gagen, Michael, 2013. "Isomorphic Strategy Spaces in Game Theory," MPRA Paper 46176, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    7. Emin Karagözoğlu & Ümit Barış Urhan, 2017. "The Effect of Stake Size in Experimental Bargaining and Distribution Games: A Survey," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 285-325, March.
    8. Kirchsteiger, Georg, 1994. "The role of envy in ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 373-389, December.
    9. Gulyás, Attila, 2007. "A méltányosságelmélet alapjai. Modellek és nézőpontok [The foundations of quity theory. Models and viewpoints]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 167-183.
    10. Burnham, Terence C., 2013. "Toward a neo-Darwinian synthesis of neoclassical and behavioral economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 113-127.
    11. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    12. Nebiyou Tilahun & David Levinson, 2013. "Selfishness and altruism in the distribution of travel time and income," Transportation, Springer, vol. 40(5), pages 1043-1061, September.
    13. Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2003. "On the Nature of Fair Behavior," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 20-26, January.
    14. Christian Korth, 2009. "Reciprocity—An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, in: Fairness in Bargaining and Markets, chapter 0, pages 35-55, Springer.
    15. Thomas Wagner, 1998. "Reciprocity And Efficiency," Rationality and Society, , vol. 10(3), pages 347-375, August.
    16. M. Christian Lehmann, 2022. "Fairness preferences as a cause of inefficient war," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 6(1), pages 33-36, December.
    17. Larney, Andrea & Rotella, Amanda & Barclay, Pat, 2019. "Stake size effects in ultimatum game and dictator game offers: A meta-analysis," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 61-72.
    18. Xiaofeng Wang & Xiaojie Chen & Long Wang, 2020. "Evolution of egalitarian social norm by resource management," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, January.
    19. Tripathi, Sanjeev, 2016. "Does odd or even make a difference," IIMA Working Papers WP2016-03-15, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    20. Hasan, Hamid & Ejaz, Nauman, 2013. "Testing for Differences across Genders: A Replication of Ultimatum Game at International Islamic University, Islamabad," MPRA Paper 44923, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:has:discpr:0109. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nora Horvath (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iehashu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.