IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trn/utwpce/0402.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The cost of fair divisions: An experimental investigation of Ultimatum Games with groups

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Faillo

Abstract

I investigated the effect of the presence of a group of non-active subjects upon the behavior of active players in a Ultimatum bargaining game. In the experiment a subject with the role of P has to offer a share r of a sum S to a subject with the role of AR who belongs to a group and decides on behalf of his group�s members (players R). If AR rejects the P�s offer, both active and non-active players get zero, if AR accepts the offer then P gets S - r while r is equally divided between AR and the members of his group. Every subject assumes all the three roles (P, AR and R) and the group size is manipulated keeping constant the share S/N (with N=number of subjects, either active or non active, involved in the game) Data suggest that active players tend to behave as they were playing a standard two-person Ultima- tum game. A clear insensitivity to changes in group size by subjects playing as P, emerging in the main experiment, is compatible with the hyphotesis that at the basis of their behavior there is a willingness to gain a payoff which satisfies an ex-ante fixed aspiration level, that for most of them corresponds to about half of S. The interpretation of the decisions taken by subjects under the AR role is more complicated as, although most of them show a behavior which is compatible with the one observed in the standard Ultimatum Game, a non-negligible share of players fix very low acceptance thresholds that could be explainained in terms of a shift from the willingness to punish unfair behaviors to the responsibility for others� wellbeing.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Faillo, 2004. "The cost of fair divisions: An experimental investigation of Ultimatum Games with groups," CEEL Working Papers 0402, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
  • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwpce:0402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-ceel.economia.unitn.it/papers/papero04_02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    3. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    4. Robin Cubitt & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 1998. "On the Validity of the Random Lottery Incentive System," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(2), pages 115-131, September.
    5. Gary E Bolton & Axel Ockenfels, 1997. "A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," Levine's Working Paper Archive 1889, David K. Levine.
    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. Fershtman, Chaim & Gneezy, Uri, 2001. "Strategic Delegation: An Experiment," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(2), pages 352-368, Summer.
    8. Selten, Reinhard & Ockenfels, Axel, 1998. "An experimental solidarity game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 517-539, March.
    9. Starmer, Chris & Sugden, Robert, 1991. "Does the Random-Lottery Incentive System Elicit True Preferences? An Experimental Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 971-978, September.
    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. 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.
    2. Ernesto Reuben & Frans van Winden, 2004. "Reciprocity and Emotions when Reciprocators know each other," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-098/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Philipp E. Otto & Daniel Dittmer, 2019. "Simultaneous but independent ultimatum game: strategic elasticity or social motive dependency?," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(1), pages 61-80, March.
    4. Charness, Gary & Grosskopf, Brit, 2001. "Relative payoffs and happiness: an experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 301-328, July.
    5. Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2008. "Social ties and coordination on negative reciprocity: The role of affect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 34-53, February.
    6. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    7. Traub, Stefan & Seidl, Christian & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2009. "An experimental study on individual choice, social welfare, and social preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 385-400, May.
    8. Frans van Winden & Mirre Stallen & K. Richard Ridderinkhof, 2008. "On the Nature, Modeling, and Neural Bases of Social Ties," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-063/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Björn Bartling & Urs Fischbacher, 2012. "Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 67-87.
    10. Ernst Fehr & Susanne Kremhelmer & Klaus M. Schmidt, 2008. "Fairness and the Optimal Allocation of Ownership Rights," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1262-1284, August.
    11. Sabrina Teyssier, 2012. "Inequity and risk aversion in sequential public good games," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 91-119, April.
    12. Sethi, Rajiv & Somanathan, E., 2003. "Understanding reciprocity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 1-27, January.
    13. Ernst Fehr & Alexander Klein & Klaus M. Schmidt, "undated". "Fairness, Incentives and Contractual Incompleteness," IEW - Working Papers 072, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    14. Timo Heinrich, 2019. "Discussion of “Consequences of Unfair Job Promotions in Organizations”," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 71(1), pages 27-33, February.
    15. Charness, Gary & Rabin, Matthew, 2005. "Expressed preferences and behavior in experimental games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 151-169, November.
    16. Barmettler, Franziska & Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2012. "Big experimenter is watching you! Anonymity and prosocial behavior in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 17-34.
    17. 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.
    18. Binmore, Ken & McCarthy, John & Ponti, Giovanni & Samuelson, Larry & Shaked, Avner, 2002. "A Backward Induction Experiment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 48-88, May.
    19. He, Haoran & Wu, Keyu, 2016. "Choice set, relative income, and inequity aversion: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 177-193.
    20. Sauermann, Jan & Beckmann, Paul, 2019. "The influence of group size on distributional fairness under voting by veto," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 90-102.

    More about this item

    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:trn:utwpce:0402. 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: Marco Tecilla The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Marco Tecilla to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detreit.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.