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Why Blame?

Author

Listed:
  • Gurdal, Mehmet Y.
  • Miller, Joshua Benjamin

    (The University of Melbourne)

  • Rustichini, Aldo

Abstract

*Journal of Political Economy Link* https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/674409 *Full Bibliographic Reference* Gurdal, M.Y., Miller, J.B., & Rustichini, A. (2013), Why Blame?, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 121, No. 6, pp. 1205-1246 ********************************************************* We provide experimental evidence that subjects blame others on the basis of events they are not responsible for. In our experiment an agent chooses between a lottery and a safe asset; payment from the chosen option goes to a principal, who then decides how much to allocate between the agent and a third party. We observe widespread blame: regardless of their choice, agents are blamed by principals for the outcome of the lottery, an event they are not responsible for. We provide an explanation of this apparently irrational behavior with a delegated expertise principal agent model, the subjects’ salient perturbation of the environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Gurdal, Mehmet Y. & Miller, Joshua Benjamin & Rustichini, Aldo, 2013. "Why Blame?," OSF Preprints g9j48_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:g9j48_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/g9j48_v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Charness, 2004. "Attribution and Reciprocity in an Experimental Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 665-688, July.
    2. Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg, 2004. "A theory of sequential reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 268-298, May.
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