IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v14y2022i3p810-36.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fairness through the Lens of Cooperative Game Theory: An Experimental Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffroy de Clippel
  • Kareen Rozen

Abstract

We experimentally investigate how impartial observers allocate money to agents whose complementarity and substitutability determine the surplus that each group can achieve. Analyzing the data through the lens of axioms and solutions from cooperative game theory, a one-parameter model (mixing equal split and Shapley value) arises as a parsimonious description of the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffroy de Clippel & Kareen Rozen, 2022. "Fairness through the Lens of Cooperative Game Theory: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 810-836, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:810-36
    DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20200015
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E140601V1
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20200015.appx
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20200015.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mic.20200015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Iuliana Pascu & Mark R. Cullen, 2012. "How General Are Risk Preferences? Choices under Uncertainty in Different Domains," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2606-2638, October.
    2. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    3. 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.
    4. Ruben Durante & Louis Putterman & Joël Weele, 2014. "Preferences For Redistribution And Perception Of Fairness: An Experimental Study," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1059-1086, August.
    5. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2010. "Strategic Thinking," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001148, David K. Levine.
    6. J. Keith Murnighan & Alvin E. Roth, 1977. "The Effects of Communication and Information Availability in an Experimental Study of a Three-Person Game," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(12), pages 1336-1348, August.
    7. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    8. Raymond Fisman & Shachar Kariv & Daniel Markovits, 2007. "Individual Preferences for Giving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1858-1876, December.
    9. Dutta, Bhaskar & Ray, Debraj, 1989. "A Concept of Egalitarianism under Participation Constraints," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 615-635, May.
    10. Dal Bó, Ernesto & Dal Bó, Pedro, 2014. "“Do the right thing:” The effects of moral suasion on cooperation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 28-38.
    11. Maschler, M & Owen, G, 1989. "The Consistent Shapley Value for Hyperplane Games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 18(4), pages 389-407.
    12. James Konow, 2003. "Which Is the Fairest One of All? A Positive Analysis of Justice Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1188-1239, December.
    13. Dutta, Bhaskar & Ray, Debraj, 1991. "Constrained egalitarian allocations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 403-422, November.
    14. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2010. "Responsibility for what? Fairness and individual responsibility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 429-441, April.
    15. 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.
    16. Alexander W. Cappelen & Astri Drange Hole & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 818-827, June.
    17. Casajus, André & Huettner, Frank, 2013. "Null players, solidarity, and the egalitarian Shapley values," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 58-61.
    18. Ruffle, Bradley J., 1998. "More Is Better, But Fair Is Fair: Tipping in Dictator and Ultimatum Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 247-265, May.
    19. SCHMEIDLER, David, 1969. "The nucleolus of a characteristic function game," LIDAM Reprints CORE 44, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    20. David Housman & (*), Lori Clark, 1998. "Note Core and monotonic allocation methods," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 27(4), pages 611-616.
    21. Gary E. Bolton & Kalyan Chatterjee & Kathleen L. McGinn, 2013. "How Communication Links Influence Coalition Bargaining: A Laboratory Investigation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Bargaining in the Shadow of the Market Selected Papers on Bilateral and Multilateral Bargaining, chapter 6, pages 113-128, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    22. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    23. James Konow, 2000. "Fair Shares: Accountability and Cognitive Dissonance in Allocation Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1072-1091, September.
    24. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2013. "Structural Models of Nonequilibrium Strategic Thinking: Theory, Evidence, and Applications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 5-62, March.
    25. Edi Karni & Zvi Safra, 2002. "Individual Sense of Justice: A Utility Representation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 263-284, January.
    26. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard, 1986. "Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 728-741, September.
    27. Rubinstein, Ariel & Fishburn, Peter C., 1986. "Algebraic aggregation theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 63-77, February.
    28. James Andreoni & John Miller, 2002. "Giving According to GARP: An Experimental Test of the Consistency of Preferences for Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 737-753, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hadi Hosseini, 2023. "The Fairness Fair: Bringing Human Perception into Collective Decision-Making," Papers 2312.14402, arXiv.org.
    2. Aguiar, Victor H. & Pongou, Roland & Tondji, Jean-Baptiste, 2018. "A non-parametric approach to testing the axioms of the Shapley value with limited data," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 41-63.
    3. Michela Chessa & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Aymeric Lardon & Takashi Yamada, 2021. "An Experiment on the Nash Program: Comparing two Mechanisms Implementing the Shapley Value," GREDEG Working Papers 2021-07, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    4. Victor Aguiar & Roland Pongou & Jean-Baptiste Tondji, 2016. "Measuring and Decomposing the Distance to the Shapley Wage Function with Limited Data," Working Papers 1613e, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    5. Bryan, Gharad & Wilkening, Tom & de Quidt, Jonathan & Yadav, Nitin, 2017. "Land Trade and Development: A Market Design Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 12136, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Ricardo Martínez & Juan D. Moreno‐Ternero, 2024. "Redistribution with needs," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 26(1), February.
    7. Chessa, Michela & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Lardon, Aymeric & Yamada, Takashi, 2023. "An experiment on the Nash program: A comparison of two strategic mechanisms implementing the Shapley value," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 88-104.
    8. Demeze-Jouatsa, Ghislain-Herman & Pongou, Roland & Tondji, Jean-Baptiste, 2021. "A Free and Fair Economy: A Game of Justice and Inclusion," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 653, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    9. Ghislain H. Demeze-Jouatsa & Roland Pongou & Jean-Baptiste Tondji, 2021. "A Free and Fair Economy: A Game of Justice and Inclusion," Papers 2107.12870, arXiv.org.

    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. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2018. "Welfare-Based Altruism," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 89, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    2. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2022. "Fairness-based Altruism," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 666, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    3. Ismael Rodriguez-Lara & Luis Moreno-Garrido, 2012. "Self-interest and fairness: self-serving choices of justice principles," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 158-175, March.
    4. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W. Cappelen & Bertil Tungodden, 2020. "Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans More Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking than Scandinavians?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1753-1788.
    5. Grimalday, Gianluca & Karz, Anirban & Proto, Eugenio, 2012. "Everyone Wants a Chance: Initial Positions and Fairness in Ultimatum Games," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 93, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    6. Cox, James C. & Friedman, Daniel & Gjerstad, Steven, 2007. "A tractable model of reciprocity and fairness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 17-45, April.
    7. Gerald Eisenkopf, 2018. "Unequal Incentives and Perceived Fairness in Groups," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-18, September.
    8. Croson, Rachel & Konow, James, 2009. "Social preferences and moral biases," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 201-212, March.
    9. Gerald Eisenkopf, 2015. "Unequal Incentives and Perceived Fairness in Groups," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2015-03, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    10. Ismael Rodriguez-Lara & Luis Moreno-Garrido, 2012. "Modeling Inequity Aversion in a Dictator Game with Production," Games, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-12, October.
    11. Kamas, Linda & Preston, Anne, 2012. "Distributive and reciprocal fairness: What can we learn from the heterogeneity of social preferences?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 538-553.
    12. Ranveig Falch, 2021. "How Do People Trade Off Resources Between Quick and Slow Learners?," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2021_04, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    13. Ernst Fehr & Thomas Epper & Julien Senn, 2022. "Other-regarding Preferences and Redistributive Politics," Working Papers hal-03506826, HAL.
    14. Ubeda, Paloma, 2014. "The consistency of fairness rules: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 88-100.
    15. Emin Karagözoglu & Arno Riedl, 2010. "Information, Uncertainty, and Subjective Entitlements in Bargaining," CESifo Working Paper Series 3133, CESifo.
    16. Daniel Müller & Sander Renes, 2021. "Fairness views and political preferences: evidence from a large and heterogeneous sample," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(4), pages 679-711, May.
    17. Konow, James & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Akai, Kenju, 2016. "Equity versus Equality," MPRA Paper 75376, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Cetre, Sophie & Lobeck, Max & Senik, Claudia & Verdier, Thierry, 2019. "Preferences over income distribution: Evidence from a choice experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    19. Mengjie Wang, 2017. "Does strategy fairness make inequality more acceptable?," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 17-08, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    20. Gill, David & Stone, Rebecca, 2010. "Fairness and desert in tournaments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 346-364, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    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:aea:aejmic:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:810-36. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.