Abigail Barr Chris Wallace Jean Ensminger Joseph Henrich Clark Barrett Alexander Bolyanatz Juan Camilo Cardenas Michael Gurven Edwins Gwako Carolyn Lesorogol Frank Marlowe Richard McElreath David Tracer John Ziker
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Data from three bargaining games - the Dictator Game, the Ultimatum Game, and the Third-Party Punishment Game - played in 15 societies are presented. The societies range from US undergraduates to Amazonian, Arctic, and African hunter-gatherers. Behaviour within the games varies markedly across societies. The paper investigates whether this behavioural diversity can be explained solely by variations in inequality aversion. Combining a single parameter utility function with the notion of subgame perfection generates a number of testable predictions. While most of these are supported, there are some telling divergencies between theory and data: uncertainty and preferences relating to acts of vengeance may have influenced play in the Ultimatum and Third-Party Punishment Games; and a few subjects used the games as an opportunity to engage in costly signalling.
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Paper provided by University of Oxford, Department of Economics in its series Economics Series Working Papers with number
422.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
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