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Fairness of the Crowd - An Experimental Study of Social Spillovers in Fairness Decisions

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  • Madland, Kjetil Røiseland
  • Strømland, Eirik

Abstract

This paper reports from a large-scale experiment conducted to study the effects of social norms on distributive decision-making. In an incentivized spectator experiment, subjects chose how to divide bonus earnings between a pair of stakeholders. Before choosing a distribution, our spectators stated their beliefs about, and received a signal about, the share of payoff-equalizing spectators in a reference group, randomly drawn from a previous study with the same distributive setting (Almås et al., 2020). This draw gives random variation in the intensity of the signal about the norm that applies in the current setting. We find a statistically significant but small effect of the number of payoff-equalizing spectators in the reference group on the probability of equalizing payoffs in the current setting. The redistribution choice is strongly correlated with spectators’ initial beliefs about the reference group. The effect of the signal about redistribution is primarily driven by the subgroup of participants who receive a large shock to their initial beliefs.

Suggested Citation

  • Madland, Kjetil Røiseland & Strømland, Eirik, 2022. "Fairness of the Crowd - An Experimental Study of Social Spillovers in Fairness Decisions," OSF Preprints tnv3g, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:tnv3g
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/tnv3g
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    Cited by:

    1. Belguise, Margot & Huang, Yuchen & Mo, Zhexun, 2023. "Non-Meritocrats or Conformist Meritocrats? A Redistribution Experiment in China and France," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1476, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Margot Belguise & Yuchen Huang & Zhexun Mo, 2024. "Non-meritocrats or choice-reluctant meritocrats? A redistribution experiment in China and France," Discussion Papers 2024-05, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    3. Belguise, Margot & huang, yuchen & Mo, Zhexun, 2024. "Non-Meritocrats or Choice-Reluctant Meritocrats? A Redistribution Experiment in China and France," SocArXiv vcuzp, Center for Open Science.
    4. Belguise, Margot & huang, yuchen & Mo, Zhexun, 2024. "Non-Meritocrats or Choice-Reluctant Meritocrats? A Redistribution Experiment in China and France," SocArXiv vcuzp_v1, Center for Open Science.
    5. Belguise, Margot & Huang, Yuchen & Mo, Zhexun, 2023. "Non-Meritocrats or Conformist Meritocrats? A Redistribution Experiment in China and France," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2308, CEPREMAP.
    6. Margot Belguise & Yuchen Huang & Zhexun Mo, 2023. "The Non-Meritocrats or Conformist Meritocrats? A Redistribution Experiment in China and France," PSE Working Papers halshs-04423661, HAL.

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